Conversations and Interrogations
by Spikey44
Summary: Sequel to Conversations and Negotiations. Welcome to the assassination game. Love is a many splendoured thing, but this game of politics, diplomacy and attempted murder will push the Queen and the Pirate to their limit and beyond! BalthierAshe FranBasch
1. Chapter 1

**Conversations and Interrogations **

_Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters are property of Square Enix, all unknown and unrecognisable characters are mine._

**The Archadian Judicial Bureau; Judge Magister Gabranth's private offices**

_A/N:This story is a sequel to 'Conversations and Negotiations' you do not have to read that one to understand this one, but it might help ___

_P.S: I'm a slave to instant gratification and hate to wait for updates, therefore I endeavour to update my own stories at a rate of knots…so here is the start of the sequel, I will try to update soon, but as I'm floundering in the dark plot wise I can't promise._

'I am opposed to this, Gabranth, it is not right to treat an ally in such a manner.'

The youngest serving Emperor in Archadian Imperial history folded his arms across his chest as he unconsciously twisted his swivel chair slightly as he sat dwarfed behind a glossy, polished desk.

Balthier, currently reclining in a chair facing that monstrous desk, one wrist shackled to the arm of his chair, continued to play despondently with the embroidering on his gold and green vest.

'Here, here.'

He cheered on the little figurehead. Fran perched on the edge of the desk near him sighed and shook her head; she was used to his occasional childish sulks and did not rise to his bait.

Basch, responsible for the shackle he could have picked in less time than it took to tell about it, did rise to the bait however, casting a frosty glare his way before attempting to appease his lord.

' Lord Larsa there is a grave need to safeguard your life…'

Larsa waved a hand in imperious fashion, 'I am well aware of the alleged conspiracy to take my life Gabranth, but that does not give us the right to force a man to risk his own to save mine.'

'Thank you, Lord Larsa.'

Balthier purred affecting a pretty good imitation of polite respect, and raised an eyebrow insinuatingly to Basch, 'It is good to know someone still values the precepts of freedom and liberty.'

Basch turned to a wire mesh in-tray sat atop a filing cabinet against the wall and picked up a sheaf of papers which he then held them out to Balthier, who had to reach around his inert right hand to take the heavy pile with his left.

Balthier looked down on the first page and read the beginning paragraph, dropping the papers onto the desk after a second with a look of disgust.

'Those are the transcripts of your crimes within the territories of the Empire from Itgar village to Safrosa Bay.' Basch rumbled in his deep bass tones.

'Pretty words on paper. Where is your proof, _Your_ _Honour_, or does the Judiciary no longer bother with the pretence of gathering evidence to support their allegations?'

Basch simply looked at him a long moment, then pulled a key, dangling on a keyring, from the in-tray with slow and ironic movements.

'We have been forced to convert a small supply room for the purposes of storing the evidence of nigh near eight years of your offences.'

'Bah.'

Balthier tossed his head with an air of mild irritation, though a dark part of him was rather pleased his infamy was such that Archades could fill a Judiciary store room with the detritus of his crimes.

'Balthier.' Larsa turned to him, clasping his hands together in penitent sincerity which was so terribly un-Archadian.

'On my word I swear that if you do not wish to assist with this,' here the little lord paused and considered his words, 'endeavour then you will not be forced. I had no prior knowledge of the extradition that bought you here and promise you Archades will not pursue any move to prosecute you.'

Balthier smirked as Basch shook his head clearly irritated, 'May I have that in writing, your Lordship?'

Larsa opened his mouth and then hesitated, the boy was too decent a soul to survive in the empire he thought to rule, but he wasn't stupid, such a written declaration would essentially grant Balthier immunity from the laws of the Empire forever, regardless of what he did hereafter.

'Balthier.'

Basch's still accented words fell into the ears like the dull ringing of a heavy bell, the warning explicit in his tone.

Balthier continued to smirk contented as a lounging predator in the chair, careless of the shackle around his wrist or his current circumstances, forced back to his country of birth to either face trial or serve as secret protector to the young emperor who was the target of choice for all and sundry assassins and conspirators.

'I'll want payment, compensation for my troubles.' He purred and saw Fran shake her head minutely, the curtain of her loose flowing hair disguising the long-suffering look on her face that only he could read.

Larsa, for all that he was ostensibly willing to set Balthier free, nevertheless looked relieved that he was discussing terms of employment.

'The Lord Larsa does not have a wedding band for you to hold hostage, Balthier.'

Basch sounded increasingly displeased with him, though Balthier did not know why. He had never fully understood why the former Knight felt such antipathy towards him.

' True, your Honour,' Balthier enjoyed using the title against the man, ' however Lord Larsa does have the authority to grant me the rights to my inheritance and assets, which I believe House Solidor has been holding since Dr Cid's death.'

Even Fran looked at him askance at this statement, she knew how he felt about his former life, but whether as Ffamran or Balthier, he was a pragmatic sort of chap.

Due to the fiasco with Ashe and the trial in Dalmasca, he was effectively without a profession, unable to turn back to piracy, and a man, regardless of status or liberty, needed Gil to live.

It was convenient that House Bunansa happened to have eleven generations of accumulated wealth behind it and the deeds to huge swathes of profitable arable and grazing lands between Archades and the border with Landis.

A man could live very well on that revenue and never need set his hand to honest labours, even as he choked on his broken principles and his own hypocrisy.

'I am more than happy to sign over your inheritance to you, Balthier.'

Larsa said a slight frown puckering his pubescent brow, 'However to do so will involve acknowledging your continued existence to the general populace of Archades, I had thought that this might not be agreeable to you.'

Balthier scoffed derisively, 'Most of Archades is well aware of my identity and continued existence and have been since our little excursion to Draklor to years ago.'

He retorted mildly, though in truth the thought of taking on the mantle of Sir Bunansa made him feel faintly ill.

But the wheels in his head were turning, plans within plans, half obscured from conscious thought by the veil of self-denial. He would need his title and his wealth soon enough if he was to affect an escape from this most recent calamity to befall him.

Larsa smiled, the smile of a small boy filled with hope, idealism and forthright conviction.

Truly, Balthier thought unkindly, it was no wonder his life was in the target hairs of every killer for hire and deranged malcontent in the Empire. What else could you do with such an angelic paragon of virtue but kill him?

'Thank you, Balthier, and to you also Fran, I am glad to have such allies as you both.' The blue eyed boy looked over to the metallic visage of his protector, still smiling.

'And you also Gabranth.'

'Lordship.' Gabranth nodded deeply, a slight smile touching his lips.

Balthier was fast developing a tension headache behind his right eye, and sighed noisily at this saccharine display, awarding him a slight frown from the silent Fran.

' Well now we are all friends again.'

Balthier drawled dispassionately, 'Perhaps _Gabranth _would be so kind as to release me from this chair? I have had a trying few days and would like a bath and a square meal before setting about ensuring your Lordship's rightful longevity.'

Basch twitched slightly at the mocking lilt Balthier put to his assumed name, but moved over to unfasten the shackle for him.

' Of course Sir Bunansa.'

Balthier met the cool blue eyes of the former Knight, current Judge Magister, and self-appointed thorn in his side, unable to hide his ire. He and the Magister were going to have to have words or this arrangement would not last long.

Really, Balthier thought irritably, he was already sharing Fran with the man, and without complaint, it was quite intolerable that the Judge persisted in persecuting him for his _dalliance _with Ashe.

'Lord Larsa, I will escort Balthier to his accommodations.' Basch declared and Larsa nodded, stifling a yawn. It was late and probably well passed the Emperor's bedtime.

Balthier frowned slightly at Fran who remained perched on the edge of the desk, He raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

'I will remain here with Larsa.'

She stated calmly leaving Balthier to wonder if the boy was in more immediate danger of his life than he had thought or if prolonged exposure to Basch had left Fran with an over-developed sense of both loyalty and paranoia.

He hoped not, he had spent years diligently behaving in the most self-centred and care free of manners, simply to give Fran a chance to live a little. He did not want to see his friend become a slave to duty where once she was a slave to an unfeeling and decidedly overbearing collection of mystical flora in Golmore.

Balthier sauntered along the almost glossy, red pillared, corridors of the Judiciary building trying not to note the changes made to the building since his time clanking up and down its corridors as Archades most dedicatedly awful and inept Judge since the inception of the Judiciary.

'We had an agreement, Balthier, I had thought you a man of your word.'

Basch spoke coldly as he led the way through the building towards a new annex that had not existed when Ffamran had called Archades home.

'An agreement I adhered to, to the letter. If there is fault, look to your own self, your Honour.' Balthier rebuffed him equally coldly.

To think if it had not been for his own open mindedness towards the notion of evil twin brothers, Basch might still be swinging from a giant cage in the depths of a dungeon, or worse, skewered on the sword of an angry, impulsive, street urchin's sword.

'My fault?' Basch never grew angry, or raised his voice, but his accent grew deeper and his enunciation more guttural with his ill-temper.

'I asked you in good faith before Bahamut to leave Ashelia be, you agreed to the terms.'

Balthier smirked, though a hot wedge of irritation shading towards anger tightened his chest and twisted his heart.

He remembered that conversation well enough. Basch's calm and reasonable request made as the man methodically and deliberately sharpened his Save the Queen and fixed Balthier with a gaze that spoke clearly of much experience killing his fellow man.

A request that involved Balthier engineering his own disappearance upon Dalmasca restoration and promising never to return to darken the Queen's doorstep again.

The reward for breaking all contact with Ashe was supposedly his freedom to continue his _business _unmolested by the Archadian Judiciary. It seemed to Balthier that, present circumstances considered, Basch had been the one to break faith first.

'I fulfilled my end of the bargain, as I have said. It was not my fault that Ashe herself had other ideas.'

Balthier snapped trying to walk by the man through the open doorway he could see led to a private apartment of rooms hidden, within a labyrinth of narrow, curving corridors, from the hive of activity that made up the rest of the Judiciary building. The perfect place to secret a fallen gentleman turned unwilling spy master.

'I pretended to be dead for a year, allowed _Vaan, _of all people, free reign over my most prized possession all that time simply to ensure your precious _Ashelia _was unmolested by my corrupting presence.'

A hand, covered in a metal gauntlet, caught his arm and prevented him from entering the suite.

'Do you intend to tell me that you do not now pursue her Majesty as you once did when we travelled together?' Basch sounded disbelieving.

Balthier looked from the man's eyes to the man's metal sheaved hand on his pristine white sleeve and swallowed down his anger.

'I do not intent to tell you anything, Basch Fon Ronsenberg, I owe you no explanation and will offer no justification for any of my actions.' He sneered.

'Now kindly let go of me before you soil my sleeve, I doubt a civil servant could afford the repair bill, should you stain my shirt.'

Basch let go but his eyes said clearly that he had not let go of the issue between them.

'Fran tells me you did not contrive to be captured by the Dalmascan Guard that this trial was of Ashelia's devising. That it was she who sought you out.'

Basch frowned thoughtfully, 'I find the notion that you are innocent of any connivance in this matter difficult to accept.'

Balthier smiled coldly, 'Then you call Fran a liar and will have to live with your conscience on that.'

He turned and walked through the threshold of the doorway into a lavishly appointed sitting room, the walls decorated with gilt inlay and the crystallights diffused in red stained glass wall sconces.

Balthier experienced a moment of paradoxically panic and elation, he was home, in a world as instantly familiar as his own face in a mirror, and he hated it to the very core of his being.

As he stood looking over the fine cherry wood furniture and damask and brocade upholstered sofa, the huge roll top desk pushed against the wall and the secluded, covered balcony, Balthier spoke to the man who was once an ally, but who now lingered in the doorway like a gaoler.

'You do not know me, Basch Fon Ronsenberg, and that you presume to judge me says more for the deficits of your character than it does of mine.'

He walked forward across the lushly carpeted living room and opened a door at random, revealing a moonlight bathed bedroom and a simply staggeringly large four poster bed, mounded with pillows. The bedroom walls were lined with books.

Ignoring Basch, Balthier walked over and pulled one volume from the shelves, as he expected the book was one of his own, removed from the numerous chests hidden in the Strahl's hold by Fran.

A quick perusal of the wardrobe confirmed that Fran had also transported his clothing (all of it, which was no small task) and furnished his wardrobe ready for him. No doubt the adjoining bathroom would be equally filled with his personal affects.

So it was all done, was it? He thought wryly, he had been smoothly moved from one gilded cage to another and there was nothing to do but sit pretty and sing for his masters.

Distantly, as he looked disconsolately around his new prison, he heard Basch close and lock the main door of the suite behind him, reminding him, in less than subtle manner, of his true status here as prisoner.

He knew as surely as he knew his own name (both his names) that Fran would be here shortly, with key to his cell and floor plans so he would have the knowledge he needed to grant himself the illusion of freedom.

She would no doubt grant him the chance to escape, if he desired, though he knew she would not accompany him, her mind and will was set on this task, to save the life of a boy-emperor, and nothing would dissuade her.

Of course if Fran stayed he stayed, though he was man enough to admit, in the depths of his own thoughts, silent under the Archadian moon, less sweet than the one that hung over the Fortress of Nalbina so many miles away that he feared he was losing his partner.

Balthier slumped down on the edge of the over-fluffed bedspread and peeled off the gloves from his hands, looking on the rings that adored his index finger and fore finger, pink and blue, the one, green and yellow, the other. He had rarely felt so bereft or alone.

He missed his airship, his freedom to roam, his peace of mind that he was governed only by the whims of his own capricious will, but most of all, and unavoidably like a dull ache and a sense of vague disassociation, he missed _her._

Balthier missed his Queen.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Palace of Rabanastre; private rooms of Her Majesty Ashelia Dalmasca**

Ashe let escape from her lips a most base and coarse curse as she tripped on a fall of bed sheet on her way towards the large bedroom window and nearly fell face first to her marble floor.

Glaring in impudent fury at the innocuous fold of silk that had sought to rob the Queen of her dignity, Ashe then turned her head and resumed her forward motion towards the window, amphora of Madhu and shot glass still securely grasped in her hand.

Today had not been a good day. That was not to say it had been a bad day. Ashe considered a bad day as one involving an act of betrayal by a most trusted advisor and the subsequent death of said traitorous advisor in an exploding airship, or finding out her husband had been killed by a stray arrow and her father murdered by her favourite Knight.

Compared to any of those occurrences, today had not been a bad day at all. It had simply been long, drawn-out, complicated and unfulfilling. Nothing had been resolved, problems had been encountered but not surmounted, and Ashe was left with the overwhelming desire to take up the Sword of Kings and go and find something to kill.

Because a Queen could not go around arbitrarily killing things because she was having a bad day, Ashe had suppressed her bad mood until she was alone and unobserved in her rooms, ferreted out the hidden bottle of Madhu and proceeded to imbibe far more of it than might be considered advisable, or good for her health.

The moon was ripe and full, pearlescent and cold, as much so, as the small stars that clustered around the halo glow of the celestial orb that maintained sole dominance over the night sky.

Ashe sighed noisily and forlornly, messily pouring herself another Madhu double and knocking it back almost too quickly to register that the glass had ever been refilled.

Anger and a sense of helplessness she had not experienced in many, many months, percolated through her body, singing in her ears and heating her blood.

It had all started with her privy council meeting that morning. Ashe was never pleased to be sat around her table of state surrounded by a group of old men she despised with a passion, but this was different today.

All the men on her privy council had served on her father's council and not a one had hesitated to turn tail and scurry away into hiding in Rozzaria or Bhujerba for the duration of the occupation; offering no support to the Rabanastran resistance or Dalmasca's rightful sovereign as she hid under her city in fear and shame.

If Ashe had been less than she was, if the fire that consumed her now and had filled her with such a thirst for vengeance once, still held sway, she might have taken restitution from all those cowardly, traitorous ingrates, at the point of her sword.

But she hadn't, instead she had tacitly offered them absolution by allowing them to return to sit upon her privy council and resume their privileged lives among the restored populace of Rabanastre without one word of complaint.

In return her privy councillors delighted in second guessing her every decision, questioning her judgement and her personal conduct and persistently, rudely and in most aggravating fashion, pushing the matter of her future marriage for the advantage of Dalmasca.

All this Ashe could deal with, swallowing down her loathing and fury, until it felt she could walk upon her feelings like a blanket of foul air buoying her up. She accepted their unfeeling demands that she marry and breed for their sense of security as the duty of a Queen.

What had so upset her was another matter completely and one she could not (entirely) lay blame at the feet of her much hated councillors.

Ashe narrowed her eyes as she stared out at the rippling shadows in indigo and violet that the Westersands became under the moonlight with the same imperious, but powerless, fury that she had awarded to the bed sheet that had tripped her.

'Damn sand.' She mumbled pouring herself another glass of Madhu with bleary concentration.

Woozily she pointed an accusing finger at the swath of desert that stretched and encircled Rabanastre for as far as the eye could see.

'If only Humes could survive on cacti, then Dalmasca would be rich beyond all imaginings.' She mused drowsily.

'The army could fight with a thousand needles and the women could wear skirts made of the flowers, we could all drink Cacti juice and on the turning of every year children could sing songs to the wonder of the cactus.'

Ashe smiled at the mental image her drink sodden brain created for her, before singing the first few refrains of the song she imagined Dalmascan children singing as they garlanded the prickling arms of Cacti with wreathes of coloured paper and glass baubles.

'Oh Cacti tree, oh Cacti tree, how spiky are your branches….'

Unfortunately Cacti did not supply Humes, or Seeqs or Bangaas, moogles and all the other races that called Dalmasca home, with all they needed to live and thrive. Thus Rabanastre found itself with a water shortage and a nearly empty granary and little Gil to import the resources the city needed to keep its populace fed and watered.

' If only, if only the Midnight Shard had not destroyed the Nabreus Plains…' Ashe felt her eyes water at the thought of the Deadlands of Nabudis, a land she had sworn to herself upon her coronation to see restored to its former glory.

Once upon a time Dalmasca; a country that survived because it connected north and south Ivalice and west to east, forming the nexus for all trading caravans that passed from Archadia to Rozzaria and vice versa, had not had to worry over importing grain from other countries.

Once Nabradia had produced enough grain and wheat and had enough grazing land for live stock to provide both her people and Dalmasca's people with enough food to live on and export for profit.

With Nabradia gone, now a wasteland that produced nothing but Banshee's and poisonous Mist, Dalmasca did not have the means to produce enough of the basic foodstuffs needed to feed her people, let alone to further trade and commerce.

'Stupid sand.'

Ashe muttered darkly, her country had been freed from occupation so that she may die a slow and ignoble death due to lack of food and increasing irrelevance as a trading station as airship freight gained prominence.

Ashe turned her wounded gaze up to the moon and suddenly the bottle of Madhu flew in an arc out of the window to tip end over end and shatter, noisily, onto the sculpted, but currently rather parched, gardens of her palace.

'Why is this so hard? I am trying, father, Rasler. I have tried to negotiate in good faith with Rozzaria for grain. I have refused to raise taxes against my people. I have offered incentives for those who do not waste water, but I cannot grow food from sand, I cannot turn the sandsea into a fresh water lake. Help me! Help me gods damn you!'

Ashe dropped to her knees, hands against the wall, struggling to breathe through the crushing weight of failure that pulled her down.

She pressed her back against the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, as she used to as a small child. She closed her eyes and turned her cheek against her knees, trying to strangle off the flow of tears that would not be dammed.

In the darkness behind her own eyelids Ashe counted to a hundred, taking a slow deep breath with each count. Presently she felt strong enough to drag herself upright and slowly, unsteadily, made her way towards the bed.

She was struggling to pull down the counterpane and crawl between the sheets, when something caught her eye. A simple plain white envelope on her pillow, but something lumpy lurked inside it.

Ashe opened the envelope without thinking to call her guard in case the unexpected missive contained some threat to the person of the Queen and tipped the small object out of the envelope.

The gaudy metal ring, dual painted in a double band of green and yellow, thumped with reassuring weight into her palm.

Ashe recognised the ring instantly, though her intoxicated brain struggled to understand what it was doing here, sitting in the hollow of her hand, and not on the finger of the pirate she had not seen or heard from in six months.

Six months since she had signed the papers authorising his extradition to face trial in Archades for his many and varied crimes of piracy.

There was a simple note inside the envelope also and Ashe narrowed her eyes and squinted dizzily at the writing, appalling as ever, scrawled across the simple white card.

_Princess, hold onto this until you find something more valuable. _

_P.S, page twenty-two, Hogarths book of Peerage edition XII._

'Hogarths book of Peerage?'

No such book existed in Dalmasca, as Dalmasca did not have a system of hereditary peerage….but……but…..Ashe thought drunkenly, her inebriated mind struggling to catch hold of the sluggish thought…..but Archadia did have peers and 'Hogarth' was an Archadian name. Yet what did that matter to her?

Now was hardly a time for light reading.

Ashe let her head drop onto her thickly mounded pillows, frowning at the cool band of metal as she twiddled it between her fingers, curiously watching the rather cheap and tacky coloured metal glint in the moonlight.

The ring was too big for her fingers so she slipped it onto her thumb and admired the chunky piece of tawdry jewellery on her splayed hand quizzically.

She had known that Balthier was still alive somewhere in Archadia because Lord Larsa still drew breath.

The plan to extradite the Pirate for his crimes had only ever been a ruse by a desperate Basch to find someone with enough under-handed contacts, lack of scruples and animal cunning to catch out the conspirators, who targeted Larsa's life, at their own game.

Ashe, who did genuinely wish to see Larsa alive and unharmed, nevertheless took a more active interest in his welfare when she knew that Balthier stood between the poor Emperor and a bullet to the brain.

Still, their last parting had been less than amicable and she had not expected to hear from him at all.

That he would leave her one of his rings, with sly reference to his own words on taking Rasler's wedding band all those years ago, proved a riddle her tired, exhausted brain could not cope with this night.

On the edge of sleep Ashe made herself a promise that come the morning she would seek out this Hogarth book of Peerage and see what the pirate was playing at.

With a sleepy sigh Ashe let herself drift into strange and disjointed dreams, Balthier's ring securely resting on her thumb, his note tucked under her pillow for safe keeping.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Disreputable ****Tavern somewhere in ****Archadia**

_A/N: A quick note to Zaz9 Zaa0 – whose review, with mention of the regicidal __bedsheets__, made me laugh out loud – thanks I really hope this sequel does justice to your (and everybody __elses__) praise ...and yes, poor __Larsa__ should be afraid, very afraid, as this chapter demonstrates!_

* * *

' So we are in agreement men?'

The burly man with the wild red hair climbed up on top of the table, his tankard held high and aloft in one strong foreman corded with muscle, the military tattoo just visible as it climbed his flesh up into his rolled up shirt sleeve.

' Aye!'

A number of other men and a few women grunted in various degrees and volumes of agreement.

'It don't sit well with me Talbot.' One man, sitting at the table the other man stood upon, spoke up with no little bravery.

' The Lord Larsa's just a wee boy, me own lad is his age.' The man, also baring the mark of one recently released from military service, shook his head as he looked determinedly into the depths of his beer.

The man on the table, Talbot, frowned irritably down on the conscientious objector.

'Aye an' whose fault is it, eh, that your young lad don't have a good and proper livelihood to grow into? Cause o' his 'igh and righteous _Lord __Larsa _we all lost our bloody commission in the army. Twenty-five years I served me bloody country and it weren't to have some snot-nosed child tell me I got to give up warring.'

This declaration was met with another enthusiastic, but muted, round of applause and agreement. The private backroom of this innocuous Tavern in the port town of Saraches Archadia was a veritable hot-bed of revolutionary fervour.

The man at the back of the room, comfortably ensconced in a darkened corner, feet crossed at ankles on the table, settled back quietly to watch and learn.

Unfortunately one of the other malcontents in the audience had spotted him and turned to him with the slightly fish-eyed suspicion that all Imperial soldiers are indoctrinated with from enrolment into military service.

'Oy, you there. Never seen you 'ere before, wot's yer bizness 'ere?'

Internalising a sigh, the man in the shadows gave no outward indication of annoyance as every pair of eyes in the room turned towards him.

Instead he sat up a little straighter and absent-mindedly tugged on the cuff of the old, sturdy great coat he wore, collar turned up against the persistent draught in the backroom, and looked mildly over to the ignorant fool who had been rude enough to notice him.

'I'm new.' The man in shadows said in mild tones.

As if it was a signal of some sort all the occupants in the room shared a look and then rose from chairs and seats or jumped off table tops to advance upon the lone man in the back corner who watched them come, face obscured, with nary a twitch.

'Oh, yer new are yer?' Talbot demanded, sharing a cruel laughing glance with the man who had first noticed the interloper, 'And what business you got 'ere, then?'

'None whatsoever.'

The man in the shadows replied with indolent lack of concern for the twenty or so conspirators who closed in on him, some brandishing daggers or short swords and others bottles ready to break so they could jab the shattered edges into the newcomers tender areas.

'I merely appreciate the exercise of lively debate, please continue your discussion.' The man in the shadows continued, as one black gloved hand flickered out into the shaft of crystallight that fell upon the table before his lounging, shadow draped, form.

Talbot and one or two other seasoned veterans of the good old days of the Archadian Imperial Army where lynching innocent people and beating anyone who didn't show proper respect formed a happy majority of their duties, smirked at one another.

'Well wot 'ave we 'ere? A man who likes a bit o' _lively debate_, is it?'

Talbot made a show of pulling on his trusty old brass knuckles while his observant friend grinned nastily and rubbed his meaty fists, tattooed on each knuckle with the words _love _and _hate_, in anticipation.

'Oh yes, indeed.'

The man in shadows seemed to almost imperceptibly pull back, though not in fear, more as if he hoped to draw the denizens of the secret tavern room further towards him, like a spider enticing unwary prey into its web.

'I was particularly enjoying your own impassioned treatise advocating the assassination of Judge Magister Gabranth, Mr Talbot.'

The man in shadow purred, which caused Talbot and one or two others to hesitate in confusion.

Talbot, while uncertain that he had ever given a treatise on anything, nor completely on what such a thing was, was however certain that he had never suggested killing Judge Magister Gabranth; though the idea, in retrospect, had definitely merit.

'No I never, I said we should kill Larsa.'

Talbot said and almost immediately regretted the statement. He was not a completely stupid man, only mostly stupid, and that tiny spark of intelligence screamed at him that he had just admitted advocating an act of high treason to a stranger with a posh accent he had never seen before, and in fact could not really see now.

'Oh, really?' The man in shadow sounded surprised and not a little disappointed.

'I apologise, I must have been indulging in wishful thinking for a moment there.'

The man sounded so pleasant, so sincere, that Talbot, who had spent his entire adult life taking orders from men with smooth and suave speaking voices just like this man, was almost soothed right out of his momentary panic.

'Of course that does leave us both with a rather awkward situation, now that you have clarified that you were speaking of Lord Larsa when you referred to the _'blood sucking, __child fiend__ that will see the Empire a ruin in a decade and must be destroyed so his bloodline may never pose a threat to __Archadia__ again._''

Talbot, who was put in mind, listening to the silky smooth voice of the man whose form was still swathed in shadow, of a type of Serpent Fiend that could hypnotise its prey into a stupor before striking with its venom, spoke up with tentative belligerence.

'Oh, yeah, wot problem's that then?'

Suddenly the shadows parted and the man emerged, uncoiling with the lithe grace of a Tchita Serpent from the darkness and Talbot, as helpless and paralysed with confusion as a Dreamhare caught in a snare, could only blink dumbly down the barrel of the rather impressive matt black rifle, levelled at his head.

'Well, regretfully, I have been charged with the duty of ensuring that the blood sucking child fiend, who is currently our anointed emperor, survives to preside over our beloved Empire whether she be in ruins or not.'

Said the man, and Talbot, and every other unfortunate would-be conspirator in the back room of the tavern, now knew exactly who the mystery man was.

'Bloody 'ell, it's Bunansa.'

Said one man, who was young by the standards of the average age in the backroom and had in fact only really fallen in with the rest of the group because they usually conspired together in bars and taverns and it beat being at home with the wife.

The man, formerly hidden in shadow and now looking rather dapper in the light, frowned with vague annoyance at the man and corrected him coolly.

'_Sir _Bunansa, if you please.'

Talbot, who had finally got his wits about him and remembering twenty-five years of military service as part of the most effective army in all Ivalice, launched into action, bringing up his own trusty short sword to insert, up to the hilt, into the neck of the Emperor's infamous spy master general, as the enigmatic Sir Bunansa had been dubbed since returning to Archades from gods knew where six months ago.

The throwing dagger that ended up impaling Talbot's hand, causing him to drop his own sword and allowing the hated gentry spy to side step out of his reach, came as a total surprise to Talbot and most of the other conspirators in the bar.

Turning towards the door to the backroom as one gaping, slack jawed mob, Talbot and the rest of the conspirators were treated to the rare and fearsome sight of a Viera, long clawed hands filled with throwing daggers, standing hip-cocked, in full Viera battle gear (which amounted in Hume terms to be hardly what one would call concealing) and ready for a fight.

'Ah Fran, exemplary timing as ever.'

Bunansa said, still in that smooth and unruffled voice as he grabbed hold of the astounded and dumb-founded Talbot by the back of the head and kneed the man, with considerable force, in the unmentionables.

As Talbot's legs gave way and his mouth opened on a soundless cry of excruciating pain, Spy Master Bunansa, still holding the back of Talbot's head by the hair, slammed his forehead into the rough, sticky surface of the table and Talbot was almost relieved when, nose breaking messily, he descended into unconsciousness.

The fight, such as it was, had ended for Talbot, but his fellow conspirators, with sense enough to realise they were in trouble but still believing twenty against two gave them the advantage, decided to fight for their freedom to plot the untimely death of a fifteen year old boy.

The spy master called a halt to the messy, loud and completely pointless bar brawl by firing a warning shot from his rifle into the ceiling (while hoping that his Firestar custom make rifle's shot didn't travel through the ceiling and shoot an innocent bar patron above their heads, in the foot).

'Enough of this.'

The gentry raised his voice, while still managing to avoid anything as uncouth as a yell, and decided to take a leaf out of Talbot's book by perching atop of a table that had not been over-turned in the scuffle.

'Even if you kill us, which you won't, this entire town is swarming with Imperial Judges, you cannot escape.'

He pointed out to the dim-witted conspirators whose only real crime was being woefully stupid.

The suggestion that this group of middle-aged former soldiers, who had most likely been discharged from the Imperial army because of their age and not because Larsa was a dangerous pacifist dictator with delusions of world peace, could actually carry out an assassination attempt was ludicrous.

As if materialised, like a summons, by his very utterance, but more likely responding to the sound of gun fire, the back room was suddenly filled with the clanking of Judiciary foot soldiers and the conspirators finally conceded defeat.

Spy Master Bunansa, who usually referred to himself by the much simpler moniker of Balthier, slumped back against the wall of the backroom as, in short order, the miserable bunch of would-be assassins were shackled and dragged from the backroom, to be questioned and more than likely released with a warning against further daft and loose talk and given an assigned parole officer.

Balthier did not know what sickened him more, that he was acting as a tool of Empire, no better than a Judge but without the spiffy armour, or that it was all so bloody pointless.

'You are troubled.' Fran's cool voice jolted Balthier from his reverie and he realised, somewhat to his chagrin, that the room was now empty save himself and his partner.

'I cannot do this much longer Fran. I need to fly.' He whispered, staring down at the smear of blood on the table top where he had dispatched Talbot into painful slumber.

A long fingered hand alighted on his shoulder, 'If you would fly then fly. I would not see your soul so tormented.'

He turned to look upon his friend and partner; Fran's ageless face still serene, her eyes calm and tranquil.

'This does not bother you Fran? These people are merely fools, unhappy with change, not killers. Every day we hunt them down leaves me more and more sick to my stomach.'

He admitted to her what he would never admit to any other. 'It feels as though I never left, I am exactly what my father wanted me to be; Empire's tool.'

Fran cocked her head and studied him, 'I am but a participant along life's course, Balthier, sundered from my calling and my nature. I go where life's current leads me, it has always been so; as it has been for you.'

Balthier let his breath out noisily and nodded his head, 'Too true Fran, but I think I preferred the journey more when the waters where less deep and the current easier to navigate.'

A tiny flicker of a smile sparked to life upon Fran's placid countenance, and resided there for a moment, she nodded.

'It is time, perhaps, to stop chasing deaths whispers and find a way to divert the current to another channel, is it not, Balthier?'

To an outside observer, be they impartial or not, this conversation would be near incomprehensible; Fran's words too obscured in enigmatic symbolism to be readily understood.

Balthier, who did not so much hear her words as the thoughts that inspired them, the two being essentially the one soul in two different bodies, smiled rakishly.

'My thoughts exactly Fran.' He demurred.

' My father used to have a saying; if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself.'

Balthier chuckled to himself as he and Fran made their way up the rickety staircase towards the main room of the tavern and the relative freedom of the (comparatively) fresh air outside.

Fran tipped her head inquiringly once they were outside on the cobbled streets of the quaint old fishing port which smelled authentically, but unpleasantly, of day old fish.

' What is your plan?'

She observed the dark and delighted smirk that had taken up full residence upon his face and recognised it from their days of pirating. He had worn the same expression when he had informed her they were to steal a bauble of magicite from the Dalmascan Treasury almost four years ago.

Fran had come to view this particular look with a certain amount of amused expectation and trepidation from that eventful moment on. It was a look that had the shadow of fate about it in the shadows of Balthier's dark and abstracted eyes.

'Hmm?'

The smile did not leave Balthier's lips as he tugged reflexively on the comfortable, but non-descript, great coat he wore when he wished to travel 'incognito', and then moved on to fussing with the fit of his gloves upon his hands.

'I am thinking that I have been going about this matter entirely the wrong way.'

He told her conversationally as they strolled cheerfully along the boardwalk over-looking the Naldoa Ocean heedless of the stiff breeze that blew through Saraches where it sat further up the rocky coast than Balfonheim to the south.

'As you say Fran, chasing deaths whispers is a mugs game and I have little interest in continuing it. No, I think I shall have death and her agents come to me, instead.'

'How so?' Fran quirked an eyebrow, though she had an inkling as to what he planned. She knew something of the quality of his mind after all.

But Balthier would not be drawn into showing his hand too early, even to his partner, and he smirked playfully.

'Ah, no, Fran. I think I shall play this gambit alone.'

'I am not to be trusted?' Fran was more amused than anything else, her suspicions more or less confirmed by his words.

'Not trust you?' Balthier contrived to look shocked by the suggestion, 'I would trust you always; it is for your benefit that I think it best I play this out alone.'

'Oh?'

Fran was more pleased to see Balthier's enthusiasm for life and its intrigues returning after months of discomfort resulting from the resumption of this life as a 'Bunansa' once more, than worried that her partner sought to play games with fate alone.

'Yes.' Balthier's eyes twinkled with a joke at her expense.

'I doubt your dearly beloved, _his Honour _Gabranth, will be enamoured with my new plan to ferret out the real threat to Larsa's life, and thus, to avoid forcing you to declare your loyalties to lover or partner I shall keep you in blessed ignorance of my plan.'

Fran, who Balthier knew, had not thought herself having any need to declare loyalties and saw no sense in troubling herself that her partner and Basch were at loggerheads regards almost everything, simply sniffed and shook her head indulgently.

'You make for Archades?'

She questioned as he started walking again towards the exit to the town and the road to the capital.

'Don't worry Fran, I have no intention of taking flight just yet.' He called back to her flippantly, mind churning with renewed vigour.

While as he found himself unable to divine the course of his life beyond this transitory period of indentured service to his mother country (and transitory it would be, whatever Basch and Larsa's plans or desires to the contrary) and he was becoming worriedly convinced that he had carelessly left his heart (at least in the dreaded romantic sense) in Dalmasca, Balthier at least had a plan of action regards Larsa's potential death by assassination.

All he had to do was return to the capital and go and visit a certain street ear regards the possibility of finding able and willing cut-throats for hire.

In six months Balthier had inveigled his way into any number of clandestine meetings, happened upon and decoded, a myriad of cipher encrypted letters from disgruntled gentry angered that Larsa thought to tax his people in a fair and equitable manner, and found nothing of any substance to their ire.

So, taking his father's advice (regardless of what ill that might foretell for his sanity) Balthier decided that if he could not trust his countrymen to devise and carry out a sensible and practical assassination of the boy emperor he would simply have to do it himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Royal Veranda Gardens; Palace of ****Rabanastre**

_A/N: __Alright,__ so he's over the top and badly dressed but I sort of liked Al-Cid in the game and thought him a rather shrewd political player. Therefore this chapter is dedicated to a relationship between him and Ashe that does not make him a cuckolded unwanted husband or a device to frustrate __Balthier__ and Ashe's true love (they can do that perfectly well on their own, I think.)_

* * *

Ashe knew this would be another less than good day when her Master of Appointments, a ridiculous title but the little Moogle, whose name was Papelle, had come up with it himself and was very pleased with it, announced that his Grace Margrace was waiting to make himself known to her Majesty in the Grand Hall.

Ashe, still struggling with a hang-over, had fought a battle with herself to keep her smile in place and asked Papelle to escort his Grace Margrace out onto the veranda, where she would join him presently for an early morning walk around the gardens.

It wasn't that she had anything against Al-Cid, he had been an ally, albeit a fairly distant one, during her quest to restore Dalmasca and was always flamboyantly complimentary and ingratiating when he visited on official business. It was just that Ashe would sooner bite off and eat her right arm than marry the man.

Once dressed and ready for an audience with the Margrace, Ashe looked over her collection of ladies-in-waiting, Penelo in the lead, with a critical eye. Al-Cid went everywhere with his 'little birds' and Ashe, not about to be outdone, responded in kind with her own coterie of attractive, stylish, young women in tow.

Though she wanted nothing more than a Remedy for her headache and a proper breakfast Ashe stiffened her spine and her resolve nodded to her youngest lady to lead the way and prepared for her 'leisurely stroll' around the palace gardens with Al-Cid.

Briefly she caught Penelo's eye as they walked in a regal and orderly procession through the palace towards the gardens. Penelo gave her a faint smile and sympathetic eyes, before taking charge, with her usual cheer, of the other ladies to leave Ashe free to stride blithely forward to meet the Prince of Rozzaria.

'Your Lord Grace, Margrace, what a pleasure to see you again so soon after our last meeting.'

Ashe smiled on him and offered her hand and signet ring for Al-Cid to kiss. The man, sunglasses in place as de rigeur and wearing a yellow frockcoat with sky blue waistcoat even at this hour of the morning, moved toward her in a flourish.

'Ahh, Your Highness, my desert bloom, de pleasure of de sight of you again so soon is surely my joy to 'ave.'

He grasped her hand in his surprisingly strong grip and bowed deeply to her, his lips, interestingly for such an enthusiastic greeting, barely brushed her skin and he was quickly straightening from his bow.

Al-Cid was royalty in his own right, and considering his auspicious and shrewd allegiances during the War of Restoration, as the battle to save Dalmasca had become known, he was now the Margrace son most likely to succeed his father to the throne of Rozzaria.

Yet despite the fact that in some circles he would be considered the more noble of the two of them, it was custom for visiting monarchy to bow to their host no matter their own relative wealth in comparison to that host.

'Lord Margrace you do flatter me.'

Was all Ashe could think to say, so early in the morning and with a monstrous hang-over, in response to his outrageous and completely false declaration.

Al-Cid smiled just a little, and Ashe recognised the slight spark of acknowledgement just visible over the rims of his sunglasses in his dark, heavy lidded eyes.

'Ah, but of course, Lady Ashe, for what else should a man do when confronted with such radiant beauty as you do own, eh?'

Well, you could start telling me your father the Emperor and his Gil-grubbing agriculture pavilion have agreed to send a shipment of grain and wheat to Dalmasca on good faith of future payment. Ashe thought sharply but knew better than to say anything of the sort out loud.

'Your Grace, shall we walk while we talk? It is such a lovely morning.' Ashe offered the Margrace her arm and he graciously accepted her invitation.

They made their way with unhurried gait along the covered portico walkway that lined the garden, somewhat the worse for the drought afflicting Dalmasca. Ashe would not have water wasted on keeping her flowers blooming when it could be put to better use maintaining the city's drainage system or assuaging her people's thirst.

'Does it not bother you, Lady Ashe, such a sight to behold upon the landscape of your fair country?'

Al-Cid nodded vaguely towards the hazy shadow of the Bahamut visible from the portico walkway, Ashe smiled faintly.

'On the contrary, Your Lord Grace, it reminds me daily of all my people have achieved and that Dalmasca, no matter her plight, will always remain strong and united.'

Al-Cid sighed and with a toss of his longish and unruly raven black hair removed his sunglasses, absently holding them out in one hand to be plucked and spirited away by one of his ever attentive and always silent 'little birds'.

Ashe again caught Penelo's eye and saw the flicker of amusement and understanding in her wide, amber gaze.

Almost imperceptibly Penelo slowed her pace and induced the other ladies in the Queen's retinue to do the same. Simultaneously Al-Cid's four strong flock of little birds, slowed their step and let their two lieges walk on ahead.

In nearly three years of being on the throne, Ashe had learned that if Al-Cid removed his glasses it was a sure sign that he was ready to get down to business and put aside the elaborate, over-done, flirtation he used to pass the time between political realities.

Ashe infinitely preferred Al-Cid the astute politician to the foppish play-boy, although the fact that he was willing to dispense with his act so soon into their promenade did not encourage her.

'First of all, Lady Ashe, I would tender apology for my family.' Al-Cid began in his heavily accented voice and Ashe imperceptibly tensed.

'Your father has refused my proposal.' Ashe said flatly, staring sightlessly straight ahead even as she somehow managed to keep her steps steady and her face mild.

Al-Cid shook his head, using the gesture to sweep aside more of his thick hair, Ashe found herself wishing, irritably, that he would just cut his hair and be done with it. Surely he found its current length an intolerable nuisance.

'My father is, how you say, of de old kind? His ways are not our ways, eh.' Al-Cid shrugged.

'He sees no sense in a transaction of any kind between our two kingdoms dat does not entail de rites of holy matrimony. Marriage is de only contract he see as binding, though he 'ave eleven mistresses an' nine illegitimate sons.'

Ashe had discovered in her numerous meetings with Al-Cid Margrace, who was the Margrace family's representative to both Dalmasca and Archadia, the fact of which Ashe found rather a prosaic and amusing example of how the political climate of Ivalice had changed in the last handful of years; that Al-Cid did not get on well with his father.

Ashe had cultivated something of a political friendship with Al-Cid, the only member of his vastly extended family she had any time for whatsoever, based peculiarly on their shared desire to avoid any chance of a marriage between the two of them.

'And there can be no persuading him?' Ashe queried, letting a little of her frustration come through.

'You have pointed out to your father all that Dalmasca is willing to offer in exchange for this emergency grain proposal? The promise of favourable import tariffs for all Rozzarian trading vessels, and the promise of full payment for the value of the grain once Dalmasca's treasury has the Gil?'

'Yes, yes and yes.' Al-Cid again tossed his head, reminding Ashe briefly of the war horses that used to be reared by Nabradia before that great nation's fall.

'Lady Ashe, I 'ave told him all dat we two 'ave discussed dese last months, but though he be of de old fashions, my father, he is no fool. He knows I do not seek to marry and believes this a ploy on my part to avoid such a match.'

Ashe closed her eyes and stopped walking for a moment, a fork of red hot pain stabbing behind her eyes.

'So that is it, then? Rozzaria would see Dalmasca starve unless I am prepared to sell my womb to the family Margrace?'

On the two diplomatic visits Ashe had made to Rozzaria since her coronation it had quickly become apparent to her that the family Margrace wanted to claim a piece of the Dynast legacy for themselves.

As Ashe was the last living descendent of Raithwall, the Empress Anoushka, wife of the Emperor Iqballa, and far more fearsome than the octogenarian Rozzarian Emperor himself, had decided to push for a royal marriage between Ashe and whichever of her sons (those few _legitimate _sons of Margrace of which Al-Cid was one) that took her fancy.

That Al-Cid, who was the only one of the bunch, legitimate or otherwise, that Ashe could bare to be in a room with for more than a minute without seeking out a weapon, was for rather compelling _personal_ reasons unenthused by the prospect of any marriage, be it to Ashe or any other woman, did not forestall the Empress in the slightest.

Ashe had no doubt whatsoever that it was the Empress who had refused Dalmasca's request for an emergency advance (pending future payment) of grain and wheat just to force Ashe's compliance.

And so Ashe was left with the sickening prospect of selling her body to feed her entire kingdom.

'Dere may be anudder way.' Al-Cid's quiet musing broke through Ashe's descending panic and depression.

' And that is?' She asked keenly.

'While my father would see a marriage between our two selves de most advantageous of arrangements between our two countries, if Dalmasca had some asset to trade against her need for grain, my father would be forced to concede to de practicalities over de traditions.'

Ashe nodded her head, even as her heart sank. It had been the first thing Ashe had looked to, as she would any transaction between her country and another, that which she wanted and needed to be off-set by something she possessed that her potential trading partner desired.

Unfortunately, unless Rozzaria found itself in desperate need of a great deal of sand in the immediate future, Dalmasca had precious little to offer in exchange and the obvious need for food stuffs her country was facing meant her bargaining hand was weak in the face of her supposedly friendly trading neighbours.

'What about restarting the oil refining programme in the Ogir-Yensa?'

Ashe remembered the long, arduous days travelling across the network of refineries, built by Rozzaria twenty years ago, while battling her way towards the Tomb of Raithwall.

Al-Cid nodded thoughtfully, 'A possibility for future negotiations, dat is sure, but for de time now, I t'ink it will not be enough.'

Ashe turned to face Al-Cid fully and pulled her arm free of his, 'Then Dalmasca has nothing left to bring to the table. You know, as I'm sure your father and your mother know, that Dalmasca has no Gil to spare that is not needed, nor resource to barter in return.'

Al-Cid sighed, and once more, infuriatingly, tossed his head, gesturing with one languid hand for one of his little birds to give him his sunglasses.

As he put them back on and bowed over her hand once more, Ashe knew that he would be of no use to her or her Kingdom.

'Dere was once a time, Lady Ashe, when first we did meet, that you were wit'out your Kingdom or any proof of your birthright. Even then I knew you a true and worthy Queen. I wish dat dere was anudder way dat I could aid you, but I doubt it not dat you will find a way to win dis battle, my beautiful lady, as you did dat one.'

Ashe swallowed back her anguish, her frustrated panic, and nodded as graciously as she could. She knew that if she had any true friend among the Margrace's it was Al-Cid and knew also that if he could aid her further he would.

'Thank you, Your Lord Grace, your advice and support is well received and appreciated as always.'

Al-Cid nodded abstractedly to her but then waved his birds off again, before speaking to her in serious tones at odds with his public facade as playboy.

'I will see what I can do about getting some grain into Dalmasca. I 'ave friends among de merchants in Ambervale, dey may, with some encouragement, wish to strike up private loans of grain and wheat wit' your own merchants here in Rabanastre.'

Ashe managed a genuine smile this time, 'Thank you, Al-Cid.'

The man waved a hand in dismissal, 'One day, no doubt, Dalmasca, she will reward dose that stand her friend, eh?'

Ashe nodded understanding that friendship, no matter how genuine, among those of her status and his, always came with a price.

'Dalmasca remembers kindnesses made towards her and honours her friends accordingly.'

'Ah, den my Lady I will keep you from de breaking of your fast no longer; it would not do for so fine a bloom to wilt in de desert sun, eh?'

Ashe knew she should offer to dine with Al-Cid, as was only proper, but her mind was churning and she could not stomach making polite and meaningless small talk over the paltry rations she and all Dalmasca was forced to live on in the current crisis.

'My thanks to you again, Your Lord Grace, and I bid you a good day.'

She dropped a polite curtsey, acknowledging his status as the probable future ruler of Rozzaria, and watched him and his little birds fly away to their land of plenty.

'Ashe? Umm, I mean, My Lady?'

Ashe was startled out of her thoughts and turned to Penelo who had come up alongside her.

'Al-Cid is right Ashe, we all believe in you. You'll figure out how to get food and water into Dalmasca, without having to marry anyone.'

A slight hesitation and the tiniest hint of a blush painted the younger woman's guileless face, 'Unless you want to marry someone that is.'

Ashe frowned confused as Penelo's eyes drifted downward towards Ashe's own hands which were absently, somewhat frantically, smoothing her skirts. She followed Penelo's gaze and found her own come to rest on the metal band of yellow and green that still adorned her thumb.

Ashe sighed, resisting the embarrassed and foolish impulse to pull off the ring and hide it, she gestured for her other ladies in waiting to lead the way towards the palace and a well earned breakfast.

'I have no desire to marry anyone, Penelo, but if it puts food on the tables of my people, I shall have too. Though I hope it doesn't come to that.'

Penelo, contravening royal protocol, though Ashe could not care less, squeezed Ashe's arm in a friendly show of solidarity. 'Don't worry Ashe, we'll think of something. Vaan and me, we're here for you, don't forget that.'

Ashe smiled as warmly as she could and clasped her friend's hand in return, but a dark voice in her mind whispered snidely that unless Vaan and Penelo had been secretly cultivating whole fields of wheat and grain, their help, no matter how kindly meant was as good as useless.

Unless some miraculous inspiration became her, Ashe might, very soon, have to beggar herself and her country to the nearest sympathetic princeling with a full granary.

As her stomach twisted painfully with dread and not hunger, Ashe glanced involuntarily at the chunky ring on her thumb. She sighed wistfully.

Things had been so much easier when all she had to worry about was circumventing the millennia old plans of immortal demigods and megalomaniacal Emperors.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Private chambers of Larsa Solidor**

'I like the blue with the mother of pearl.'

Larsa stood in front of the full length mirror, perched on a leather covered foot stool as a handful of the very best tailors in Archades knelt by his feet, pins in mouths, taking up the hem of the trousers the young Emperor was being fitted for.

' What do you think, Gabranth?'

Larsa's reflection smiled at his protector with slightly knowing eyes, Basch, who had lost a little of his military discipline and started to slouch slightly against the wall waiting for the fitting to be over, experienced a moment of panic as he struggled to think up an opinion.

' Your judgement is sure to be better than mine, Lord Larsa.' He muttered.

Balthier, lounging comfortably in an overstuffed arm chair dragged into the bedroom for the duration of the fitting, snorted derisively.

' The blue is a fine colour, your Lordship, but may I suggest that you might like to broaden your sartorial palette a little?' He purred.

Larsa grinned and nodded, ' This is very gracious of you, Balthier, purchasing a set of new suits for my birthday. I hand myself over to your impeccable taste, I fear I have had little tutoring in fine tailoring.'

Balthier waved his hand in dismissal of both Larsa's genuine gratitude and his slight, subtle, and well-done barb regards Balthier's well documented vanity.

That Larsa was possessed of the embryonic hint of a sardonic wit reassured Balthier greatly. He did not trust a man who was all sweetness and no vinegar.

' I must say I am really quite looking forward to my coming of age celebration, I have been fifteen for some three months and nineteen days, it is high time I was acknowledged as a man.'

Balthier and Basch, their differences momentarily put aside, shared an amused look behind the back of the pubescent Emperor whose voice had only just begun to break.

'Indeed Lord Larsa.' Basch agreed with his royal charge as Balthier demurred with a dry and urbane.

'Quite so.'

Man or not it was passed time Larsa did away with those dreadful trunkhose and green tights. Balthier considered this the only duty he owed his mother country, to see her Emperor dressed like a king and not a court jester.

'I shall be closer to sixteen than fifteen by the time the preparations for my birthday celebrations are completed.' Larsa added almost petulantly.

' A delay was necessary considering the current political climate.' Basch pointed out, firmly.

Birthday parties could wait until Larsa's life was no longer in danger as far as the Judge Magister was concerned, however Larsa was, despite his wit, his intelligence and his boundless altruism, still a fifteen year old boy and he would have his birthday party even if (quite likely) it proved to be the death of him.

'Yes, but I cannot live my entire life hiding from those who wish me harm, I understood that my reforms would provoke upheaval and I am prepared to pay the price of seeing Archades become a better and more equitable society.'

Larsa explained slightly irritably as he was directed by one of the silently attentive tailors to peruse a book of fabric samples for the third of the five suits Balthier was spending the late Dr Cid's money on in an act of patriotic kindness that was only partially motivated by a desire to irritate the sartorially challenged Judge Magister.

' As you have said, Lord Larsa, however it is my duty to see that you survive to see that better, more equitable society is established.' Basch replied with just the faintest hint of asperity in his tone.

Vaguely Balthier wondered what heinous crime Basch had perpetrated in some other past life that he had been forced into service to not one, but two, young and headstrong monarchs.

Still, Balthier reasoned ironically, he damn well _knew_ that Ashe had been much more difficult to corral and manage than Larsa, so Basch really had nothing to complain about now did he?

'I have received a letter from Penelo.'

Larsa changed the subject as he held his arms out and the tailors draped cloth over his torso and arms to see how his choices would look on his person.

'I do not like the green so much in this light.' Larsa said critically, turning slightly on the stool so he could see it from different angles.

'What do you think Balthier?'

Balthier caught Basch's slow head shake in the periphery of his vision and repressed a smirk. No doubt this session of idle primping and vanity was pure psychological torture to the grave and ascetic former Knight.

'It is a good strong colour but perhaps a little too much to make a full suit from.'

He met the eyes of the senior tailor, the man's name was Hector, and he had been a favourite of Dr Cid's whom Balthier had decided to keep on retainer.

'Perhaps the material could be put to good affect as a lining?' He queried, and the tailor nodded with circumspect understanding.

Hector had made a good living from the Bunansa family in the past and hoped to continue to do so now that the young master Ffamran had returned, however if he made favourable impression on the Emperor he and his two sons were made for life.

Basch, patience strained in a way that it had not been when imprisoned in Nalbina or forced to endure the sight of his Princess, little Ashelia, cavorting about flirting with a sky pirate like a common girl during their return from Giruvegan three years ago, could hold his tongue no longer.

'You mentioned you had word from Dalmasca, my Lord?' Basch spoke up.

Larsa's smile blossomed on his still round and unfinished face, Basch had found that if he was struggling to deal with the young Emperor's occasional moments of teenaged temper-tantrum, mention of Penelo and the possibility of the former sky-piratess turned budding ambassador visiting Archades bought the boy to heel.

Balthier watched as Larsa's initial bright smile faded and he nodded gravely.

'She was upset in her letter, the situation in Dalmasca is worse, I fear, than officially stated. The water shortage is abated because of the advent of the Rains, but food is very scarce and I fear that the Lady Ashe is struggling to broker a deal for further grain imports.'

Basch turned and looked pointedly at Balthier who gazed back at him impassively. What did the man expect _him_ to do about this news, Balthier wondered?

Basch's attitude towards his relationship with Ashe was peculiar in the extreme, the Judge Magister did not want him anywhere near Ashe, but seemed to believe that Balthier should immediately rush to her aid out of a sense of platonic love and duty.

It was exceedingly odd and also, in Balthier's opinion, an enormous insult to Ashe herself.

' I am in a quandary as to what to write in reply to Penelo.'

Larsa continued not oblivious to the charged looks flashing between the two men behind him, but choosing to politely ignore them as the private business of his subjects was their own concern and not their Emperor's.

'Officially I can do nothing until Lady Ashe or one of her Councillors makes a former request or trade overture, and of course, though we are at peace with Dalmasca, it will still be difficult for Ashe to justify pleading aid from the empire that once occupied her country, so it is unlikely she will request any Archadian aid.'

'I wouldn't let it trouble you.'

Balthier drawled disinterestedly, looking over one of the discarded books of clothing patterns and studying some rather fetching sketches of embroidered vests with a discerning eye.

'I'm sure Her Majesty has an ace up her sleeve that will bring an abundance of food into Dalmasca.'

'You care so little, Balthier?'

Basch sounded genuinely surprised and as Balthier looked up from the book of patterns he saw that Larsa was looking at him a little askance as well, having turned from the mirror to face him directly.

It seemed that his relationship with Ashe, however one wished to define it, was no secret to either of them.

'On the contrary, your Honour, I simply trust Ashe to govern her own country and fight her own battles. Just as I did three years ago, or I should not have traipsed all across Ivalice in her retinue.'

'No one, not even the Dynast Queen, can fight every battle alone.' Basch pointed out in his gravelly voice.

Balthier shrugged unconcernedly, 'True, and if she needs help, I trust Ashe to request or find it without needing to be prompted,' a tiny flicker of a smile danced across his face as memory afflicted him of his first meeting with the then Amalia in the sewers under Rabanastre, 'even if it be from thieves, pirates, or emperors.'

Larsa seemed satisfied by this answer, a ruler and a young ruler at that, he understood the need to fight at least one battle alone and stand on his own two feet unaided by a battalion of loyal retainers.

'Yes, I am sure you are right, Balthier. However I think I will keep a close eye on the situation, the worsening crisis may prevent Lady Ashe from attending my birthday. That would be a great shame.'

Balthier felt his smile broaden and even Basch's mask of concern and annoyance slipped and softened into a smile. They both knew what the young man meant, as his cheeks flushed slightly to see his two favourite advisors smirking at him with knowing eyes.

If Ashe could not come to his party then her chief lady-in-waiting and unofficial ambassador to Archades, the newly ennobled_ Lady_ Penelo, would also be unable to attend.

That, from the perspective of the love struck young man, would be a tragedy of epic proportions far worse than an emergent famine in Dalmasca or any lurking assassins in the wings.

'It _would_ be a great shame.' Larsa piped up, too young to keep his mouth closed in his own defence though with every word he merely incriminated himself further.

'From a diplomatic point of view, of course.' He added defensively.

'The presence of Dalmasca's queen will demonstrate that the rift between Archadia and Dalmasca has been healed and further confirm the peace between our two nations.'

Basch had to look down at the plush carpeting under his heavy leather boots to hide his smile, the man for once forgoing his full suit of armour, though his brother's twin sword rested in its scabbard at his belt.

Balthier, his face as smooth and bland as butter, merely nodded. 'Of course, your Lordship, diplomatic relations between Archadia and Dalmasca are very important.'

'Yes.' Larsa said, hackles settling, though he knew the two older men were teasing him, he turned back to the mirror. 'Yes they are important. Very important.'

'Perhaps Ashe will choose to use your coming of age ball as an opportunity to have Penelo make overtures towards you, your Lordship.'

Balthier couldn't help himself, it was too easy a target and he had not the self-discipline to resist.

Basch fixed him with a look that was more drolly amused than annoyed and Larsa, the poor boy, almost fell off his stool as he turned a shade of red not usually natural to the Hume complexion.

'Overtures of a purely _diplomatic _nature, of course.'

Balthier added impishly and was rather pleased when the Lord Larsa, having managed to clear his head of a sudden rush of blood, started to laugh delightedly, further demonstrating that although a strange mix of exceptional intelligence and saintly intention, he was still (thankfully) a dirty minded fifteen year old boy at heart.

Once Larsa had regained his usual, polite and calm composure and the tailors had all the measurements they could want for one sitting, Balthier and Basch joined Larsa in his sitting room.

'How many assassins have taken your bait today, Balthier?'

Larsa asked curiously as he helped himself to a miniature lemon meringue pie laid out with the tea in the silver tea set bought in by his footman.

Basch cleared his throat pointedly, before Larsa could so much as nibble at the edge of the pastry.

With strained patience Larsa handed over the pastry and waited for the attendant to test the food and tea for poisons with the use of a special spell and alchemical potion mixed for this particular purpose.

Once the food had been confirmed as benign and Larsa had taken back his pie and had a cup of tea poured for him, Balthier addressed his question.

'Quite a number of interested parties have approached Jules regards the contract I set on your life, your Lordship.'

Basch, managing to look as uncomfortable sitting on the ermine lined sofa in his Archadian tail coat and matching red britches as if he was still in full armour, shook his head in disgust once more at Balthier's plan.

'This borders on entrapment, Balthier; to tender a false contract to ensnare potential assassins. If they are bought to trial they will claim the state sought to frame them.'

Basch spoke from his surprisingly judgemental moral core. Balthier wondered, unkindly, if it ever became lonely sat atop the moral high ground all alone.

He decided to ignore the Judge and look to the boy whose life formed the bait that tempered his trap.

'As you know your Lordship, any fool with a grudge can take it upon himself to try and kill his Emperor, but to have the contacts and wherewithal to put out a formal contract, a bill of execution to all and sundry professional bounty-hunters and assassins, that takes a great deal of pre-planning and, more particularly, Gil.'

Larsa nodded, 'Have you had any luck ascertaining if there are other contracts on my life in operation?'

Balthier sipped his tea, crossing his right leg over his left at the knee, his right foot bouncing as he considered how much Larsa, but more importantly, Basch, needed to know.

'Three contracts have been tendered and taken up that Jules is aware of. One is likely to fall through as the contractor has not the Gil to pay for the service, the second is my own and the third,'

Balthier uncrossed his legs to lean forward and place his cup of tea back down on the table, giving himself time to formulate a nice way of telling Larsa what no fifteen year old should have to hear.

'The third is the one that we need to worry about, I take it?'

Larsa asked, remarkably calm and sanguine considering just how many people in his city and beyond seemed to want the boy dead, but then he was a Solidor, and had assisted in the death of his own brother, so this sort of thing was second nature to him.

'Jules has run into a brick wall trying to find information on the contractor, and as you know,'

Balthier said with a slightly strained smile, the mere mention of the duplicitous Vulgar was enough to put Balthier in a bad mood and he had been forced to have rather extensive (and expensive) dealings with him of late,

'There is very little the street ear does not know or cannot find out about.'

Larsa nodded gravely, while Basch frowned. It was Basch who eventually spoke up watching the keen, but abstracted, expression on Balthier's face.

'You have a plan for finding the source of this third contract, Balthier?' Basch prompted when the pirate remained silent.

'Hmm? Oh, yes.'

Balthier nodded, this was to be the difficult part. He was fairly sure Larsa would agree to the necessity of his proposal and equally sure that Basch would not. Fran, for that matter, had not been thrilled when he had shared his idea with her.

The former Knight was going to be a thorn in Balthier's side in more than one way during these next few weeks, Balthier could tell. Getting around him, especially with Fran's adherence to him less than complete, might prove harder than finding the Gil-man behind the third contract.

Basch had not been happy with the plan of 'entrapment' as he called it, to ferret out all the known and active killers for hire in Archades with the use of a false contract on Larsa's life.

However Basch had been forced to reluctantly concede (after conversing with Fran, who knew how to win an argument with nothing more than the subtle raising of an eyebrow) that luring dangerous men and women off the streets and into a gaol was a worthy pursuit, especially as it meant fewer potential assassins remained to threaten Larsa.

Balthier, despite this initial success with his false contract, was still not satisfied; there would always be men and women willing to kill for the Gil to buy their next meal, or worse, simply because they enjoyed it.

The real threat to Larsa, the dark shadow that Jules had only heard whispers of, was not a cut-throat in an alley but an organised and well-funded conspiracy against Archadia and Larsa, Balthier was sure of it, and he suspected it came from a foreign power he just didn't know which one.

'The coming of age ceremony is the key.' Balthier thought out loud, absently brushing non-existent lint from his cuffs with black gloved fingers.

'My birthday party?' Larsa interrupted Balthier reminding him of his audience, a terrible oversight for the leading man to forget his waiting audience.

'Ah, yes, of course. It will be the perfect opportunity for an assassination, or for you to catch the conspirators in the act.'

Larsa sounded just slightly uncertain, less trepidation for his life than fear that the party he was very much looking forward too would be ruined by something as unseemly as a royal death.

Basch looked ready to offer a strongly worded objection against Balthier's newest strategy, but the pirate raised his hand to forestall the man.

'I am hoping it doesn't come to that, your Lordship. Instead I was thinking a certain amount of misinformation regarding the itinerary, security measures, and guest list for the party could be disseminated by persons unknown to be received by certain disreputable individuals beforehand.'

Basch was still frowning but looked a touch less thunderous, 'So that any would be conspirators will make plans based on faulty intelligence? You intend to entice them to strike at the party?'

'Better to have them make their move at our convenience than at a time we are not expecting.' Balthier pointed out blandly.

Larsa nodded slowly, hands clasped tightly in his lap. 'I understand the necessity and the advantages of staging an elaborate trap for these conspirators. I will be glad, in fact, to know that an attack is imminent rather than be forced to endure all these formless whispers and warnings.'

Balthier said nothing, but he could not avoid Basch's intense gaze upon him, a great deal was riding on Balthier's ability to locate the real source of the threat to Larsa before his coming of age ceremony.

Balthier was also acutely aware that all he had to go on were the self same 'formless whispers' that had been floating around the quiet still air of the Imperial Palace and the alleys of Old Archades for months.

It was his honest opinion, as it had been when he had first been forced into this role of secret guardian to the Lord Larsa, that nothing save divine intervention from the gods he did not believe in, could spare Larsa's life.

Unfortunately familiarity and close proximity among humes always bred one of two responses, fondness or contempt. To his annoyance, Balthier did _not_ hold the little lord Larsa in contempt.

Therefore he found himself with a growing personal investment in this doomed venture, and pirate and gambler though he was, Balthier knew a man should never bet more on a turn of the wheel than he was willing to lose.

The comfortable mood of the clothing fitting ruined by talk of imminent death and conspiracies Balthier excused himself from Larsa's presence.

He made his way, with less than his usual spritely vigour, to his private quarters (no less a tastefully appointed cell than they were six months earlier, but merely familiar to him now) to spend the next several hours pouring over the scraps of rumour and hear-say and racking his brains to devise ways of keeping Larsa alive against steeper odds than he had ever encountered.

Balthier, who had spent the entirety of his adult life ducking and diving to avoid either emotional attachments or responsibility, felt equally oppressed and panicked by the weight of both upon his shoulders.

Hitting the doors to his private apartments he moved with speed and determination to the well stocked wet bar, poured himself a triple shot of Madhu (though he detested the stuff usually) and set about the deliberate and purposeful act of getting exceedingly, and disgustingly, drunk.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Beirluge main cabin; en-route to Bhujerba**

_A/N: I don't own a Nintendo DS, and Revenant Wings is not scheduled for European release until first quarter '08, so I know nothing about Vaan's ship and that includes the proper spelling of its name! –so apologies about that- if anyone knows the proper spelling can you let me know for future reference? ;)_

_Also as always huge thanks to everyone reading and reviewing. I'm trying to stick to a plot this time around but I promise their will be Balthier and Ashe squabbles and fluff very soon!_

* * *

Though Ashe had experienced plenty of tragedy and heartache in her life, despite the fact that she was barely twenty-two years of age, she still had the foolish belief that there should be a limit to how much pain one person should endure.

She had known her uncle Halim was unwell; the Marquis had taken up his seat of governance over Bhujerba once more after the war, alongside his son Joaquin, but had apparently been tormented by an undiagnosed malady for the last several months.

Ashe, who considered Halim her friend, as well as her closest surviving relative (despite the fact that they had had their differences during her exile, Halim often appearing a hindrance or a puppet of Empire) and she had tried to find out how he was faring and his overall condition numerous times only to be rebuffed by her cousin Joaquin.

She now heard, not from her cousin, but from other sources, angry voices of dissent that reached the ears of herself and her Councillors, stating that all was not well in house Ondore or Bhujerba, the country having suffered a downturn in fortunes since the war and the ensuing peace, where there was less need for Magicite to fuel the military expansionism of other nations.

The whisper that had alarmed Ashe most and motivated this impromptu trip was the rumour that her uncle's health had deteriorated to the point that he was bed bound and insensible.

The thought of her clever, shrewd and temporising Uncle Halim, who once led a resistance force against the Bahamut, as a gibbering wreck locked up like a prisoner in his own rooms horrified Ashe.

That was why she was now travelling to Bhujerba in Beirluge, which she still considered Vaan's ship despite the fact that it was her Treasury that paid for its fuel and maintenance, (this being the deal she had brokered with Vaan, he became a Knight in her service and granted the use of his ship to the Dalmascan Crown and in return he did not have to foot the astronomical bill of airship maintenance.) with every intention of seeing her uncle even if she had to do so by walking over her cousin's insensate body.

In fact that would be an added bonus, Ashe thought darkly; she had never liked her cousin though he had been a favourite of her mother. Who had noted on her nephew as if he was another of her sons (all the more so when her eight sons succumbed to one or other mortal malady before they reached adulthood.)

Ashe also hoped to speak with her uncle (whom she did not believe could ever become addled in his wits and suspected the rumour was of her power hungry cousin's design) regards tendering a joint supplication for grain for Dalmasca.

Bhujerba was in a similar situation to her Kingdom, a city state without the land (residing on a floating rock as it did) to produce enough food of its own to feed its people, but Bhujerba had Magicite and because it possessed that damnable ore it had enough wealth to buy all the food it could ever need.

Ashe hoped that Bhujerba's credit and Dalmasca's good name would force Rozzaria to part with its grain, if not she would turn to Archadia.

She knew Larsa would be willing to grant her aid, but her people would only accept Archadian grain that had been bought. Three years was not quite enough time for Dalmascan's to accept Archadian charity easily.

' Bhujerba's coming up, Ashe.'

Vaan called back to her from the pilot's seat and Ashe took the time to prepare herself, straightening her spine and smoothing her skirts, transforming from Ashe to Queen Ashelia in an eye blink.

She caught Vaan's grin as she finished her preparations and allowed herself the faintest of smiles in acknowledgment.

' Say hi to Ondore for me, okay?' Vaan called as Ashe prepared to alight from the craft and go and greet the diplomatic delegation waiting at the docking bay of the Aerodrome for her.

'You are not coming?'

Ordinarily, if Vaan had been any other member of her Royal Guard, she would be ordering his actions and would tell him if he was coming with her or not, but Vaan was Vaan and she treated him as such; at least when they were alone.

'Nah, I want to check on a few things first in the city, and the old girl's engines were clicking and making weird noises as we came into dock, so I want to get her checked over.'

Ashe bit back a smirk at the term _'old girl'_, that was what Penelo had dubbed a 'Balthierism'. _'Old girl'_ being an Archadian term not Dalmascan and Vaan tended to channel his sky pirate mentor alarmingly when he talked about airships and the like.

Ashe nodded her head, 'Alright, come to the estate as soon as you are finished though.' Ashe couldn't keep a slight pensiveness from entering her tone.

Vaan, although not a quick thinker by any stretch he could still be highly perceptive, he frowned slightly.

'You think there could be trouble?'

Ashe brushed a finger against her lips thoughtfully, 'No, but my cousin Joaquin is not Uncle Halim and I would prefer to remind him that Dalmasca is far from a poor and defenceless backwater Kingdom.'

Vaan grinned, 'Yeah, okay.'

And then with a flash of self-knowing humour Vaan winked at her and asked, 'How obnoxious should I be; Eruyt bad or just a little in their face?'

Ashe laughed remembering how deliberately and monstrously rude Vaan had been to Fran's sister Jote and her fellow Viera in Eruyt village on their first visit and, ironically, how effective that had been.

Ashe had on a few occasions since put Vaan's 'bluntness' and lack of diplomatic training to good affect when diplomacy wasn't getting the job done.

' Try not to insult anyone until you get through the door Vaan, then, well, let's just see how it goes.'

Vaan gave her a slight salute and cheerful grin, 'Right, count on me.'

When he grinned at her she could still see the seventeen year old wide eyed boy with all the dreams and pain that seemed so like her own, in his open, cheerful expression.

However his face was thinner now, having lost the adolescent softness, and of course the food shortage had also had noticeable affect on him, as it had her.

Ashe felt her smile die as she saw the stark toll her country's crisis had on him and the rest of her people and felt again the crushing weight of failure upon her chest.

'Don't Ashe; it's not your fault.'

Vaan rose from his seat and stood before her, he was still only a little taller than she was and would likely grow no taller, being of stocky build. His blue eyes were uncharacteristically serious.

' You'll sort this out, Ashe. We all know that you're doing everything you can, no one blames you and you shouldn't blame yourself either.'

Ashe couldn't meet his eyes; three years ago she had been both infuriated and, once she had come to know Vaan and her travelling companions a little better, impressed by the fact that Vaan never treated her like a monarch but as an equal.

She might have been born a Princess and he a commoner but as far as he was concerned she was just a Dalmascan like he was and that had always been good enough for him.

She had come to base her rule on that principle, she may wear the crown but she would always be a servant to the needs of her people and right now she was failing them. They looked to her to provide and she could not.

' Perhaps, perhaps, I should look to marriage. Rozzaria would..'

'No way.'

Ashe did not know what startled her more, that she had allowed herself to sound so pitiful and weak in the presence of one of her most loyal subjects, a person she should always be a pillar of strength for, or the unguarded vehemence clearly audible in Vaan's speech.

She stared at him too shocked to speak as he gripped her forearms in his strong hands.

'No way are you going to just go and marry Al-Cid or whoever, Ashe. We'll figure out how to get food some other way, but no way should you go throwing yourself away for the price of bread.'

Ashe opened her mouth and closed it again soundlessly, she thought she should be making some form of utterance but was completely mute, unable to formulate a reply as Vaan rushed on, his words almost tripping over themselves in his haste.

'I know how you are Ashe, thinking it's all on you because you're the Queen, but you're wrong. You are Queen but you're _our _queen and no one wants to see you sell yourself and Dalmasca to the highest bidder.'

He looked at her fiercely, with the same determination she had seen in his eyes when, the Sun-Cryst fit to explode, he had taken up one of her swords, treaty or sword of kings she could not recall and it did not matter, and moved with her towards the Cryst, intent on destroying it.

'_I_ won't let you do that Ashe. We'll find another way. _You'll_ find another way.'

Ashe was uncomfortably aware of how close to tears she was and was paradoxically elated and horrified by Vaan's words. They gave her strength but also drove home to her, like a physical blow, how much was at stake.

'…..Vaan…' She tried to say something as he let go of her, cheeks flushed with embarrassment at his own display of emotion, and turned back to his flight controls and console.

'Besides,' He added in a barely audible mumble that Ashe almost didn't catch at all. 'You have to marry him; you need to be with Balthier.'

Any words Ashe might have planned to say, any platitudes or promises, fell to the way side as she gaped at him, in a show of total astonishment.

'_What?' _

She almost choked and Vaan, who looked extremely uncomfortable merely shrugged diffidently but his eyes, when he looked up at her from beneath the fall of his ash blonde fringe of hair, were calm and serious.

' Well you do.' He said defensively.

' He's the only person you'd ever let order you about, you listen to him even when you don't like what he says, and he's the one you should be going to for help, because all you have to do is ask and he'll do it.'

Ashe blinked and shook her head sadly, 'Vaan, I don't think even Balthier can help solve this.'

She said solemnly, very conscious of the weight of the warm band of metal on her thumb.

Vaan, almost agitated, turned around and rummaged under the flight control console by the foot well of the vacant co-pilot's chair.

'Here. Penelo said we had to be 'subtle', but subtle isn't working.'

He brandished a dark blue leather bound book and pushed into her hands, she looked down at the legend embossed in fancy gold script across the cover; _Hogarth's book of Peerage Edition XII. _

'Vaan?' Ashe stared from the book to her Captain's face, a foggy memory of a note on her pillow stirred in her mind.

'Go on, open it; page twenty-two.' Vaan prompted almost sullenly, though she thought she detected a hint of impatience in his tone.

She opened the book and turned to page twenty-two, forgetting for the moment the Bhujerban delegation no doubt impatiently waiting for her to depart the vessel and waiting in the aerodrome docking bay.

Ashe was instantly captivated by the writing on the page. The book was a _'whose who' _compendium of the Archadian gentry and each chapter was dedicated to one of the great houses of the Empire.

Page twenty-two opened the chapter on the Bunansa family and listed the living peer (Ashe noted, absently, that this addition must be very recent as it listed a Ffamran (Balthier) Mid Bunansa as the only current living member of the family.)

It was when she reached the paragraph that detailed the assets and landholdings of House Bunansa that Ashe's heart went into palpitations and the book dropped from her hands.

Vaan hurried forward to take her arm, as she paled and looked almost ready to faint. 'Ashe, hey, Ashe are you okay?'

Snapping out of her stupor Ashe lanced Vaan with a quelling glare and he almost expected her next words to him to be along the lines of _don't interrupt! _As she used to snap at him on occasion three years ago.

' _Why did no one tell me!' _

She demanded instead, grabbing up the book and ignoring the polite, but firm, knocking on the outer cabin door as the Bhujerban delegation lost patience and called out to her Majesty the Lady Ashe.

Vaan winced, 'Well like I said, me and Penelo wanted to be subtle because you don't like being told what to do. So we talked to Fran and she told us about the book and got one of Balthier's rings for us and…'

Ashe's eyes shot to the ring and back to Vaan. 'The ring? But the note was in Balthier's handwriting...'

She trailed off when Vaan's ears reddened with guilt and embarrassment.

'Well, you know,' She watched Vaan rub at his neck awkwardly, she had always found that gesture annoying.

'Balthier did teach me a bit about forgery and I figured his handwriting's so bad anyway that…'

'_You _wrote the note on my pillow, the one that contained the ring?' Ashe was astounded and did not care that her voice was raised dangerously loud.

Vaan winced and shuffled his feet, so that he almost appeared to be dancing on the spot in his discomfort. 'Yeah, but only so you'd know about the Atholl herd, and then you could...'

Ashe, aware of the Bhujerban diplomats growing increasingly frantic outside the airship, raised a hand imperiously to silence him.

'Don't interrupt me, I'm thinking.'

She snapped absent-mindedly, thoughts whirling, the words of the fourth paragraph of page twenty-two of Hogarth's book of Peerage edition twelve emblazoned across her mind.

_Atholl, he has an entire herd of prime grade Atholl sheep! A fifty thousand strong herd of the most expensive, most sought after, wool bearing sheep in Ivalice. Those creatures can fetch up to thirty thousand Gil a head. _

Of course Ashe knew that a great many sheep would not, in themselves, save her country.

Slaughtering the entire flock would not manage to feed a third of her population (the Empire, upon seizing control had conducted a full census five years ago and Dalmasca's population had been somewhere in the region of five hundred thousand, five years on it was likely nearer a million, most of those living in or around Rabanastre.)

However Ashe did not need to have the means to feed her people only the leverage to force Rozzaria to enter into a fair trade agreement. Rozzaria would trade grain for prime grade Atholl wool or meat and the Empress could not force Ashe to marry any of her sons if Ashe was no longer penniless and asset-less.

Atholl sheep, from which the best meat and wool could be harvested, a material which could be made into almost anything and took very well to magickal enchantments and the like, making it the material of choice for light armourers, was a commodity that would give Dalmasca a fairer hand in trade negotiations.

Ashe's thoughts flew onwards as, in a dream she dithered by the cabin doorway. She was no longer inside the Beirluge, but instead caught in the wonder of hope. A hope inspired by the prospect of a way out of her country's crisis that did not involve enforced marriage.

If Dalmasca had control over the entire flock of Atholl sheep that would also give her valuable leverage against Archadia, not that she wished to use such, but in politics it was best to have and not need then need and not have.

Ashe thought about the difference a commodity of something people actually wanted, instead of mounds of useless sand, would make upon her Kingdom. The Bunansa lands were extensive and if the figures mentioned in Hogarths book were anywhere close to accurate, they were also very profitable.

Perhaps she could have some of the farming land converted from the production of turnips, which Ashe did not see as an essential foodstuff, to grain or wheat, so that Dalmasca would at least have a reserve in case of future emergencies.

_Of course_, a voice in her head whispered, snidely, _you might want to ask the owner of the land if he minds you co-opting control of his property first._

Ashe's high flying hopes and wild thoughts crashed to the ground with the force of the Bahamut falling all over again.

Even if Balthier was willing to loan her the value of the revenue of the sheep, or gods, even if he was so driven by that odd turn of altruism that had led him to aid her three years ago, so that he gifted the herd to her, she would never be able to justify such to her Councillors.

After the trial they already suspected her of indecent relations with a wanted felon. If she started receiving obscenely generous gifts from Archadian noble men she would never gain the respect of her privy councillors and as much as she loathed to admit, she could not rule without them.

Ashe swallowed hard and drew in a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and meeting Vaan's hopeful eyes.

She felt a wave of anger that he had manipulated her which was swiftly over taken by guilt and frustration that she couldn't simply demand he set the ship on a direct course to Archades right now.

'I'm sorry Vaan, but even if Balthier was willing to part with his lands, his rightful inheritance, for Dalmasca, it would never be accepted by either my privy council or Rozzaria.'

'It would be if you married him. Then it would be your property as well.' Vaan pointed out with his usual stubborn simplicity.

Ashe smiled sadly, even as her heart thumped painfully in her chest, 'I cannot marry him, Vaan. A queen can't marry a sky pirate.'

She had thought once, during the trial she had held for him, that she might be able to, but then reality had interfered with her dreams and reminded her that she was not free to live life as she wished, but instead as her people demanded.

She laughed harshly, 'And more to the point I think Balthier would sooner hang himself than tie himself in matrimony to a life of grounded responsibility.'

Vaan looked at her askance, as if she was the one being foolish, ' Fran says he'd do it if you _told_ him too. She says he misses you.'

Ashe felt her heart plummet and then ascend in a mixture of panic and elation, but she shook her head. _Fran said _was not the same as Balthier saying it, no matter how close the two were.

'I'm sorry Vaan,' she said firmly. 'Truly I am but this,' she gestured to the book discarded on the floor of the cabin, 'is not the answer either. I'm so sorry.'

Without giving Vaan a chance to say anything more and fearing she had already said too much on the subject as it was, she turned and forced open the cabin door to greet her cousin Joaquin and his irritated delegation.


	7. Chapter 7

**Archades; The Senate Tower**

_A/N: The way I figure it the least Ashe could do to reward Penelo and Vaan for their aid in the game is a quick social elevation via knighthoods….which incidentally happens to make Penelo a much more eligible prospect for an Emperor to eventually marry, then say, a commoner shop girl ;)_

_Also, yes, my Balthier is really quite myopically insensitive at times….any man who can be that blasé about a falling sky fortress death trap is a man with considerable tunnel vision! It's not that he doesn't know (or care) about Ashe's troubles but for him out of sight equals out of mind. _

* * *

'Hey Balthier fancy meeting you here.'

Balthier stopped and turned around with his most engaging smirk firmly in place as the scantily dressed blonde woman skipped over to him as he made his way, briskly, along the red pillared and vine twinned covered walkway lining the sky garden of the Senate tower.

' Well, how now, Lady Penelo?'

He said smilingly as the Rabanastran reached him, her fair hair flying free in wispy tendrils and a cheery smile on her face. She blushed a little when he used her new title.

'What are you doing?'

She asked him without preamble looking around at the quiet balcony garden high above the rest of the city and rubbing her bare tattooed arms slightly in the slight breeze; even in high summer Archades was considerably cooler than Rabanastre.

'Taking a mid afternoon stroll, it's what the doctors recommend.' He replied disingenuously.

'Oh.' Penelo, he could tell, was clearly trying to work out if this statement had any particularly meaning and her brow furrowed slightly. 'Can I join you?'

He quirked an eyebrow, 'You're not with Larsa?'

Ashe, as expected, had regretfully declined the invitation to Larsa's coming of age bash in a few days time, but as an early gift to Larsa had dispatched Penelo as her envoy a week in advance of the celebration. Larsa had been walking on air since the nineteen year old fair maiden had disembarked the commercial airship.

Penelo shook her head, 'He's in a Senate meeting and anyway I thought I'd come say hi to you.'

Balthier raised both eyebrows questioningly and watched the blush creep up the girl's neck from her low neckline.

Generally speaking Balthier was too much an Archadian to entirely approve of all the flesh Dalmascan's tended to display in their choice of attire, but in terms of the females of the nation, he could see the appeal.

Gallantly he offered the 'diplomatic envoy' his arm and they recommenced a leisurely stroll along the paths of the sky garden.

'I have a request to make of you, Penelo.'

He began distractedly, he had not planned to use Penelo in his scheme but now she was in front of him he decided to take advantage of the girl's assistance. Thinking ahead to that night he did not see the sudden grin appear of the girls face.

'Is this about Ashe?' Penelo interrupted his thoughts and he blinked, stopped walking and looked down on the girl in a moment of total confusion.

'Ashe? No, why would it be?'

He did not feign his puzzlement, it was genuine. Ashe had been as far from his thoughts right that moment as she had ever been.

Penelo looked both surprised and uncomfortable, 'Umm, well, er…hey what happened to your ring?'

She said loudly and suddenly, gesturing to his gloved hand where only one brightly coloured ring adorned his finger.

Balthier frowned distractedly at the pink and blue ring on his index finger, and the absence on his forefinger of the green and yellow ring he had lost some weeks ago.

'Misplaced, apparently.' He replied distractedly opening his mouth again to redirect the conversation towards his own ends.

'Oh, that's a shame!'

Penelo declared still in a loud, slightly forced voice, her eyes wide and fey. Balthier, who had experienced no more than a few moments irritation at the loss of the ring, could not understand her reaction at all.

'But I'm sure it will turn up soon; maybe somewhere really unexpected.' She added and actually winked at him.

Balthier studied the girl for a moment, wondering if the situation was so bad in Dalmasca that Rabanastran's were taking leave of their wits and then decided he would really rather not know.

'Yes, possibly.' He waved his free hand in dismissal. ' _Anyway_ I wished to talk to you about Larsa, Penelo.'

'Larsa?' the Girl's attention sharpened instantly and Balthier smirked, knowing he now had her complete concentration.

'Hmmm, yes. I take it you will be sitting with Larsa in the Imperial box for tonight's theatre performance?'

'Oh, yes,' Penelo nodded enthusiastically. 'I'm really looking forward to it; I have never seen the ballet before.'

Balthier nodded not really hearing her words, 'There is going to be an attempt on Larsa's life tonight Penelo.'

'What?'

Penelo almost tripped over her feet as she stopped walking and Balthier, still holding her arm in his, did not. She stumbled after him, almost trotting to keep up with his much longer strides.

'But I thought you were going to catch the assassins at Larsa's party?'

Penelo was something of a confidante to Larsa and probably knew more about the inner workings of the Archadian government than a foreign national and representative of another ruler had any right to know.

Balthier scoffed distractedly, failing to note the girls alarm as his thoughts ticked onwards.

'No, they were never going to strike at the party; it was far too obviously a trap. I simply said that to put Larsa at ease and keep Basch from finding out what I have really been doing these last six months.'

'But…!' Penelo struggled to pull her arm out of Balthier's grip.

'Balthier!' She snapped managing to run around in front of him forcing him to stop his very brisk strides and halt his restless circuit of the gardens.

' Basch and Larsa don't know?' Penelo demanded.

' No, they would simply interfere.'

He frowned, annoyed that the girl was asking so many questions. He always looked on Penelo as Fran's little protégé and certainly the girl was a fine mage and fighter when she needed to be and a good partner to Vaan; for this reason he sometimes forgot that Penelo was not just a Hume version of Fran.

'Penelo, this is nothing to worry about. I have taken all the necessary precautions. I was only going to request you stay close to Larsa tonight in case of unforeseen mishaps.'

Penelo was staring at him astounded, ' But if you know that someone is going to try and kill Larsa at the theatre tonight, why aren't you arresting them or something?'

' Because the man who pulls the trigger is merely the tool of assassination not the real threat. This assassination must be allowed to take place, or at least a damn good attempt made, so that the real culprit is forced into the open.'

He explained with strained patience. He had suspected for a good few months whom was responsible not only for stirring up the ire of the malcontent's within Archadia but the international threat to Larsa's life as well.

However they were an unlikely suspect and without proof he would never be able to catch them or convince Basch to let him try. The Knight turned Judge still held to antiquated principles like due process, reasonable doubt, and the right to a fair trial.

Thus Balthier had spent months deliberately chasing his own tail on the one hand, keeping Basch and Larsa in the dark by distracting them with pointless raids and false contracts, and on the other slowly and meticulously waiting for the real threat to make their move.

Penelo was gaping at him, 'But you're supposed to be saving Larsa, not letting people get close enough to kill him.'

Balthier smirked down on the girl, 'No, that is Judge Magister Gabranth's duty. My task is to locate and eliminate the threat to Larsa's life. There is a difference. You cannot catch a fish without a juicy worm, Penny, and Larsa is the worm.'

Penelo managed to snap shut her gaping mouth with an audible click of teeth. He wondered at her shock, she and Vaan had helped him rob treasuries and smuggle all sorts of illegal contraband in the past, surely she had some idea of his modus operandi by now?

' Wow, Balthier, being in Archades really has a bad influence on you, doesn't it?' She exclaimed eventually.

Balthier scowled at her, 'You have no idea.' He muttered darkly.

'You really have done everything you can to make sure nothing will harm Larsa though, right?'

'Of course, really Penelo, what do you take me for?'

Penelo fought a smile and declined, for the sake of politeness, from answering. She reinserted her arm through his and they continued their promenade around the gardens.

'Does Fran know what you're up too?'

'Penelo, please, Fran knows everything.' He scoffed and the young woman laughed and lightly punched him in the arm with her free hand.

Balthier had not told Fran what he was up to but he was certain she had guessed; she usually knew what he planned almost before he did, after all.

He was also sure that even if she wasn't completely in favour of his scheme she would not interfere, nor tell Basch.

Hours later and Balthier was waiting in the wings of the Grand Archadian theatre as the ballet, something to do with a black Chcocobo who was in fact an enchanted Princess, not that Balthier had much patience for ballet, bounced on towards the denouement upon the lighted stage.

He had made sure that the security was just lax enough that the sniper could sneak in and situate himself in the rafters of the stage and was currently keenly watching, not the sniper, but a golden furred Rebe who sat in the audience three rows from the stage.

Balthier recognised this individual and was decidedly pleased to see the leonine figure as it proved to him that he was on the right track. The Rebe was a faithful attendant of the Marquis Ondore and had been the resistance's liaison with the Marquis _Halim_ Ondore during the war.

Balthier did not know the Rebe's name but that did not matter, all he had to do was wait and see what the Rebe did once the sniper made his move; hopefully the man would lead him straight to Ondore.

Screams and shouts of horror erupted from the serried rows of gentry and ardents who had filled the theatre as the sniper, with a nice sense of dramatic timing Balthier could appreciate in an ironic manner, chose to take his shot during the standing ovation for the performers.

Fran was in motion almost before the bullet left the gun's barrel.

She launched herself from her perch atop the huge crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling, and sailed towards the Imperial box by a grappling line, sweeping Larsa up from the box at the same moment Penelo threw up a magic barrier to deflect the bullet.

As Larsa, clinging tightly to Fran's neck, flew through the air towards the safety of the exit, Basch, belying the advancement of his years, leapt over the wall of the box and down onto the stage with the deftness of a panther, sliced one of the stage ropes with his dagger so that the sand bag fell and he was hoisted into the air towards the fleeing assassin in the rafters.

All in all, Balthier congratulated himself, things had worked out exactly as he planned them.

From his hiding place he had a perfect view of the panicking, fleeing ballet enthusiasts as they scattered hither and thither for the exits, but he had eyes only for the golden furred Rebe, who rose up with the crowds but did not panic. Instead he made his way purposefully towards the backstage area.

Balthier, retrieving his rifle from where he had hidden it among a collection of theatre props, followed his mark.

The backstage area was not the ideal place to be stalking a potentially dangerous opponent. It was filled with costume racks and pieces of stage scenery and the detritus of the theatrical arts.

Balthier had been afraid the Rebe might try and flee this way, but there had been nothing he could do about it without tipping off either friend or foe prematurely to his trap.

Balthier was passing by a small copse of bright green prop trees when the Rebe lunged out from between a collection of the unnaturally colourful and symmetrical foliage, claws extended and teeth bared.

Unable to get out of the way in time Balthier was slammed into the wall of the props room as the Rebe attempted to snap his neck with one large furred hand. Balthier raised his gun and slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of the Rebe's head.

The golden skinned Rebe let go of him and reeled away clutching his head, Balthier sucked in a grateful gulp of air and levelled his rifle at the Bhujerban government official.

'Why do you follow me?'

The Rebe managed to make the question sound reasonable and contrived to look shocked and uncomprehending. Clearly the Rebe was intending to play innocent and hope to pass off his momentary aggression as a terrible mistake.

'Merely looking for a quick exit, friend.' Balthier smirked, almost tempting the man to say something in response. After all there were a number of ways to interpret that statement.

'Tell me, have we met before?' He added slyly when the Rebe did not take the bait.

'I do not believe so. Forgive me for earlier, I was afraid that the assassin…' The Bhujerban trailed off managing to contort his furred and leonine snout into an expression of contrition.

Balthier propped his gun against his shoulder and smirked, 'Yes, quite, apology accepted.'

The Rebe however was frowning, 'Why do you have a gun?' He demanded.

Balthier let his smirk broaden, ' For incentive.'

In an eye blink the Rebe was moving again, but this time Balthier was ready for him, diving for the ground as, with a bestial growl, the Rebe pounced on him, sailing over his head into a papier mache mountain as Balthier rolled to his feet and aimed his gun at the Bhujerban's back.

'As I was saying, consider this rifle an incentive for your good behaviour.' Balthier began, racking a round in the chamber. 'Tell me what I want to know and I will not be forced to use it.'

However the Rebe had better sense than Balthier had credited him with and instead of turning to attack once more he dove forward, flinging a large piece of broken mountain at Balthier forcing him to duck, and running full tilt for the suddenly revealed exit.

'Oh, bugger!'

Balthier swore and took off running after the Rebe, who had made it though the door and barricaded it from the other side.

By the time Balthier had forced open the door his shoulder was numb from impact with the heavy wood and the Rebe was nowhere to be seen.

Swearing a blue streak under his breath, Balthier took off down the narrow alley that ran behind the theatre and burst out onto the crowded, panicked, streets of Trant.

'Balthier!'

He heard the call, but did not respond; instead he continued to run as fast as he could towards the aerodrome.

He could not let the Rebe make it back to Bhujerba. If the man did he would go straight to the Marquis and any chance of catching the conspirators red handed would be irredeemably lost.

He barely noticed as Fran came abreast with him, her long legs easily outstripping him as they raced through the foyer of the aerodrome and towards the waiting Strahl.

Balthier did not have the time to acknowledge the thrill of sheer pleasure he felt in being back in his beloved airship as he started the engines and took off from the docking bay almost before the docking bay roof had fully retracted.

'Whom are we chasing?' Fran demanded as they both caught the fleeing airship on the Strahl's sensors and Balthier threw the Strahl into breakneck pursuit.

' An agent of Joaquin Ondore. The new Marquis is the one behind the third contract.'

Focused on the rapidly escaping airship before him he did not turn to see Fran's eyebrows fly up towards her hairline, but he heard the shock in her voice.

' You are certain of this?'

Balthier took one hand off the steering levers as he threw his ship into a sharp turn that almost tipped her belly up in the air. He slapped his chest, where the incriminating evidence rested safe and secure in his coat breast pocket.

'I have the contract Ondore sighed.' He smiled brightly.

'The contract for the assassination of one Larsa Solidor.'

It really was, Balthier thought rather smugly, so nice when a plan came together just so.

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_A/N: next up, reunion time for our love birds (finally!), but not under the most pleasant of circumstances!_


	8. Chapter 8

**Bhujerba; the Ondore Estate**

_A/N: Just a note to say thanks to everyone reading and reviewing, twenty reviews is fantastic and the feedback is lovely. ;)_

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'Lady Ashe, cousin, it is good to see you.'

The Marquis Joaquin Ondore looked like a younger version of his father, her Uncle Halim, a man in his middle thirties with pale hair and broad flat features, but his lips were pinched and mealy mouthed in a way Halim's had never been and the thickly jewelled golden torque of state he wore around his shoulders spoke of a vulgarity her refined uncle had never possessed.

' Marquis Ondore, cousin, I thank you for receiving me.'

She offered her hand and saw the spark of reluctance and irritation in his dark eyes as he was forced to bow and kiss her signet ring.

A Queen, even a queen of an impoverished half-starved desert kingdom, trumped a mere Marquis any day. It was petty to take pleasure in baiting her cousin but Joaquin always brought such feelings out in her.

She was introduced to the collection of Rebe attendants that had served her uncle and now served his son before Joaquin took her arm and led her up the bridged walkway and slight incline from the aerodrome to the Ondore manor.

'Cousin, how fares my uncle, surely it cannot be as bad as I have heard?'

Bhujerban's flocked the street and stopped what they were doing to watch their procession, some called out to her as she passed and she took the time to wave and smile, all the while aware of the tightness of her cousin's features that his population was so happy to see a foreign monarch and so uninterested in their own Marquis.

Joaquin turned to her slightly sharply,' What have you heard?'

He demanded almost harshly, the hand that lay over hers as she rested it lightly in the crook of his arm, squeezed down painfully.

Ashe arched an eyebrow surprised and instantly suspicious, 'Only that my uncle, your father, was gravely ill, that he suffers from some strange and unknown malady of the muscles and the brain.'

She felt it as her gil-grubbing, spiteful cousin relaxed fractionally and her own suspicions ignited.

What reason would he have to be calmed by the fact that she had heard his father was ill but alarmed that she had heard anything at all? What could he be hiding?

' There is no good news I can bring you, cousin. Alas, though it grieves my heart, I fear my father does not have long left to him.'

The tremor in his voice, the grave and pensive frown, the grimness of the words were all correct and proper for a statesmen, who could not show too much emotion in public, when making such a declaration regards the health of his father; but Ashe did not believe that any genuine sentiment existed inside his soul.

' Then I would see him immediately, cousin, if it is as bad as that.'

Ashe kept her words calm even as she wanted to draw her stiletto dagger on him and force him to tell the truth. Suddenly the rumours of poisoning that she had mostly written off as malicious and scandalous gossip, gathered legitimacy.

Joaquin looked as though he would like to argue, but had no grounds personal or diplomatic with which to deny her, now that she was here in the city, at least.

With a forced and thin smile he nodded, 'I will escort you to him myself.' He demurred.

Without further ado they made their way through the Ondore estate not to the Marquis' quarters, which had now been co-opted by Joaquin, but to a smaller, altogether less lavish part of the building.

'I must warn you cousin, my father's mind is all but gone, he is wild in his wits and like to lash out at shadow and fancy.'

Joaquin said gripping her arm and preventing her from pushing open the heavy door to her Uncle's sickroom.

Ashe studied the slight hint of dancing panic in Joaquin's eyes for a moment. Was it genuine concern for both her and his father or fear of what her uncle might say to her?

'I understand, cousin, thank you.' She managed a faint, false smile, and shoved open the door, pulling free of her cousin's pinching grip.

'Oh, sweet gods.'

Ashe's hands flew to her mouth as all the blood left her head and froze in her veins when she laid eyes on her Uncle Halim for the first time in over a year.

Without a glance to the pernicious faced nurse who shuffled back from the bed, Ashe flew to her uncle's side and clasped his face.

Gone was the refined, cool witted and calculating man war and the rocky paths of diplomacy had turned her uncle into in recent years.

Nor could she see any trace of the smiling, gracious man who had carried her on his shoulders and galloped along the corridors of his estate with her when she was a tiny child.

This man was, Ashe realised in her abject horror, tied to his bed at wrist and ankle, mouth flecked with foaming saliva and eyes wild and vacant. His face was all but skeletal and his mouth opened and closed on strangled, insensible utterances.

'Ghhh-alllllla?'

'Uncle? Uncle Halim, it is I. It is Ashe. Can you hear me?'

' Nuuuuurrr?'

The eyes continued to dance across the ceiling and track shadows and phantoms that did not exist, the tongue lolled and the dribble slicked his chin. Without a moments hesitation Ashe wiped the vomit flecked saliva from his unshaven, emaciated face with her bare hands.

Ashe could feel tears prickling her eyes as the smell of urine and faeces rose like a miasma from the bed, from the man trapped in the bed, and she looked up with unadorned rage towards the hatchet faced nurse and the indifferent Rebe attendant who stood in a corner.

How dare they? How dare they treat her uncle in such a manner? How could they let him wallow in his own filth, how could they allow any living being to suffer so?

'Release these shackles. Let him up, gods damn you!'

The sallow eyed nurse (though Ashe hardly considered this unfeeling harridan a nurse) shook her head.

'Not allowed, Marquis' orders.' She replied in surly heavily accented tones. Ashe turned to the Rebe, a man who had once served her uncle, astounded. The golden furred Rebe, whose name was Lord Anover, simply shook his head.

Ashe, disgusted and aghast, rattled the shackles and tried to remove them but without the key she could not undo the iron cuffs.

'Uncle, uncle, please I know you are still here somewhere, tell me who did this to you.'

Because she knew, with absolute conviction, that this was no ordinary illness, no malady of the mind and body. This was deliberate and her cousin had had his own father locked up in this awful state until he wasted away into death.

She clasped his lolling chin and leaned over him, staring into his vacant, wandering eyes as her own vision shattered in prisms of watery light and tears fell.

'……….aaaaaaashhhhhhhlllaaaaa?' Her uncle's eyes seemed to focus for a moment on her own.

'Yes Uncle Halim, I am here.' She whispered gratefully, leaning her head over him and her hair, longer than she liked it, fell like a curtain to obscure the movement of her lips and his.

'……….poison……..' Her uncle whispered, almost silently. Ashe met her uncle's eyes and saw the depths of his intelligence, his despair, and knew her uncle was not mad at all.

But before she could make any comment or decide what she had to do next to liberate her uncle and find out truly who was responsibly (she could not believe her cousin would poison his father, lock him up and denigrate his power, yes, murder him, surely not.) Halim threw his head back with a tortured scream of pain and his back arched up off the filthy, soiled mattress.

Ashe threw herself back from the bed as her uncle began to convulse, violently, head thrashing, bloody foam bubbling from his lips, eyes rolling back in his head and body jerking in his chains like a rag doll, a puppet jerked and twitched by a violent puppeteer.

Ashe could not gather her wits, too horrified by the scene in front of her, to stop what happened next.

The nurse leapt forward with the darting movements of a Dire Rat and Lord Anover suddenly appeared behind Ashe to grab her arms and prevent her interference as the nurse readied a syringe of some unknown liquid and inserted the needle, pushing the plunger down, into the side of her uncle's neck.

Instantly, a marionette with his strings cut, her uncle went still and limp, only the laboured rise and fall of his chest indicated he was still alive.

Ashe stamped on the Rebe's foot, slammed a cocked elbow into his mid-rift, pivoted on her heels as he released her with a pained grunt, caught hold of one of his large, furred forearms and threw the Rebe over her shoulder in one smooth movement.

As the Rebe fell forward onto the bed, the damp and foul smelling rag he had been intent on using to smother her fell to the ground. Ashe wrenched his sword from his scabbard hanging from his belt and levelled it on the suddenly very still nurse.

At that very moment the door to the small room burst open and Vaan flew in, Danjango dagger and Deathbringer sword in each hand and face flushed. Ashe heard shouts and angry cries from beyond the room but could not care about that now.

'Vaan the shackles, release the shackles.'

She gestured to her uncle Halim's prone form on the bed and saw his face pale before setting in a grim mask of resolve, he tossed the Deathbringer sword to her as he settled down by the locks, pulling picks from his boot (he had also learnt lock picking while playing sky pirate and Ashe saw no reason why a Captain of the Queen's Guard should let such a useful skill grow rusty.)

Ashe pressed the Deathbringer's edge to the Rebe's neck as she jerked him up to his knees.

'You attempted to assault a Queen, Lord Anover, you had better have a good explanation for that.' She hissed icily in his tufted ear.

'They wouldn't let me in when I came to the door, Ashe, even though the guards knew who I was. Said you were with the Marquis and had said I was to wait outside the manse. That's when I knew they were lying.'

Vaan explained as he started to lift her uncle from the bed.

'I got kinda worried so I found a low level window to one of the pantries and snuck in the building that way. I saw the new Marquis and some of his men running to an airship and figured something was wrong. It's a good thing I picked the right corridor to run down or I'd never have found you.'

Ashe nipped her lip with her teeth, she could not imagine what dangerous conspiracy she had fallen into and could not waste time now pondering it. They had to leave, she had to see her uncle safe and find him real healing care.

'We make for the aerodrome.' Ashe said firmly, 'Vaan can you carry Halim?'

Vaan hefted her uncle's deadweight and rose slowly to his feet, ' Yeah, he's so light now, they must have been starving him for ages.'

Ashe could not allow herself to consider just how long her uncle had been suffering in silence like this. He had supposedly been ill for over a year; could someone have been poisoning him all that time?

'Lead the way Lord Anover, you can explain what is going on aboard my ship.'

She pressed the edge of the sword known to cause instant death into the Rebe's throat as a gentle warning to behave and the man rose awkwardly to his feet. Too tall for Ashe to keep the blade at his throat she instead pointed the tip into his lower back and urged the traitor forward.

As they were almost out of the estate, a contingent of guardsmen converged on their position and Lord Anover chose that moment to break away from Ashe, whipping around and striking her across the face with his clawed paw.

Ashe staggered backwards, bleeding, onto her backside with a thump. Vaan, arms full of her helpless uncle, could do nothing as the Rebe advanced on her.

'I am sorry Lady Ashe, it would have been better for you had you never come here. We are too close to our objective, I cannot let you interfere.'

Ashe scrabbled for the sword, but the Rebe was too fast, grabbing her by the neck and lifting her off her feet, all but hanging her by the neck in his short clawed, furred hand.

'Now that, sir, is no way to treat a Queen.'

Ashe had a split second to realise, amazingly, that she recognised that smooth and blandly amused voice as she simultaneously struggled to pry herself out of Lord Anover's choking grip; then the loud crashing rapport of a gunshot split the fraught tableau asunder.

Ashe wrenched herself free, landing heavily on her feet, bloody trails marking her throat, as the Rebe jerked in surprise, blood covering his white tunic. She watched as another shot sent Lord Anover crashing to the ground dead.

A very familiar looking man in a long grey woollen coat, collar turned up, one arm gracefully extended and still holding the smoking rifle that had killed the treacherous Rebe, stood a few feet away, an irritable frown on his face.

' Ashe, what in blue blazes are _you_ doing here?'

He demanded at the same time that Ashe and Vaan let loose with a simultaneous and equally stunned cry of:

'_Balthier?' _

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_A/N: alright it's a bit of a cheat with the reunion part, I admit. Next chapter will have some quality slushy/fluffy AsheBalthier moments however and that's a cast iron guarantee. _


	9. Chapter 9

**The ****Ondore**** Estate; ****Bhujerba**

_A/N: Just a little note to Libranfate, thanks for the review...no grammatical or spelling errors? Are you sure, because I have absolutely no comprehension of grammar at all. When I see a problem I throw a semicolon on at it and hope for the best usually...though I have been making more of an effort lately so thanks!_

_Also to Sapereaude13, yes patricide is a popular past time among the rich and powerful of Ivalice isn't it? Though I think Balthier could write a chapter in Vayne's book on helping to kill ones father too!_

_Finally, Aoife-Hime, yes I liked the coat image too!_

_Anyhoo, I've been writing like a dervish lately, this story just demands to be told, so here is another update before I retire to a darkened room and try and spend some time in the real world._

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_'__Balthier__!'_

Ashe exclaimed as she bounced to her feet almost too fast after wriggling free of the golden furred Rebe's claws and the fiend himself dropped to the ground, a smoking, oozing red hole in his back.

Breathing rapidly Balthier lowered his rifle, afraid that the tremors of exertion and terror causing his fingers to lose their grip would be too telling. He took a moment to gather his wits before turning his eyes from the vision of dishevelled loveliness before him to the heap of golden fur at her feet.

'Ashe, quick, revive him.' He struggled to reholster his rifle in his back sheave with one hand as he pointed to the Rebe with the other.

Ashe, caught in the silvered glow of a new moon, hair brushing her shoulders in quicksilver tendrils and panting from her near choking at the hands of the very same Rebe now dead at her feet, simply stared at him in mute shock.

Balthier moved forward towards the Rebe beginning the chant to cast the revival spell on the villain with a growl of frustration, mostly directed at himself for letting the horrifying sight of the Rebe slowly throttling his queen to death distract him enough that he had shot the blighter.

If the Rebe was dead he had lost his greatest piece of evidence tying Joaquin Ondore to the attempted assassination of the Emperor. It was a near unforgivable oversight.

'What are you doing?'

Ashe snapped out of her shock when she saw him trying to revive the very same traitor that had just tried to kill her. Her nails dug into his shoulder through the thick wool of his coat as she tried to stop him.

'I need him alive.' Balthier snapped turning to face her for a moment.

Ashe had dropped down on her knees beside him and frowned at him quizzically. He tried to ignore the pang he felt in his chest to see the dark circles around her storm grey eyes and the thinness of her face.

She looked wane and exhausted, he had not seen her look so tired and defeated since immediately after the destruction of the Shiva and Vossler's death. It shocked him how much it distressed him to see her so beaten down by capricious fate.

He wrenched his attention back to the matter at hand and deliberately decided to ignore any further thoughts of her. He had a job to do and he would do it. 'This man was party to an attempt on Larsa's life and I need him alive so he can be interrogated.'

He explained shortly as yet another revive spell failed to have any impact. The magick flickered and sparked around the body before stuttering out like the flame from a lone candle in the wind.

Ashe elbowed him out of the way, ' Move; you are making a mess of it.' She snapped, all business, and began to chant a revival of her own.

At that moment Vaan dropped down on his other side with a lop-sided grin, ' Are Larsa and Penelo alright?'

Balthier nodded, watching Ashe grow increasingly frustrated as her attempts to revive the Rebe failed as well. 'Perfectly fine, the attempt failed.'

He watched Ashe for another handful of seconds and then caught her hands, 'Leave it, he's dead.'

There was no point flogging a dead Chocobo, nothing was going to revive the Rebe. He would have to find some other way of proving that Marquis Ondore was responsible for the conspiracy against Larsa.

As he rose to his feet, brushing off a few blades of grass from his trousers he spotted the limp bundle of filthy rags on the ground a few feet away and blinked in surprise.

'Is that...?'

Ashe had risen to her feet as well. 'My uncle Halim.' She nodded her face grave as she swiftly walked over to the stricken Hume. Confused Balthier followed her.

'He's not looking well.'

Balthier commented more than a little inanely as he watched Ashe stroke a hand over the man's face and check his pulse and breathing with almost maternal gentleness.

Ashe turned to give him a dark look, 'I believe my cousin Joaquin has been poisoning him. When I came to see for myself what illness afflicted my uncle, Lord Anover,' and here she pointed an accusatory finger towards the dead Rebe, 'attempted to smother me in my uncle's sickroom.'

Balthier fiercely suppressed the irrational urge to kill the Rebe all over again and rebuked himself firmly to get his emotions under control before he made a fool of himself (it was quite unlike him and for no sensible reason he felt it was all Ashe's fault).

' I see.' He said blandly, 'And I suppose your cousin has scarpered in all the excitement?' He queried drolly though he already suspected the answer.

Having lost the Rebe's escaping airship when an electrical storm came out of nowhere halfway to Bhujerba, he and Fran had been playing catch up for the last six hours. When they had reached Bhujerba the Strahl had been almost knocked out of the sky by the Ondore flag ship making hasty retreat.

Fran had turned the Strahl around to pursue the flag ship and Balthier had parachuted down into the grounds of the Ondore estate in time to see a nightmare made flesh as Ashe was almost hung by the neck from the Rebe's golden clawed hands.

'Yeah, I saw him and a bunch of his guards getting into his airship while I was looking for Ashe.' Vaan confirmed.

Standing around doing nothing had never been a favoured past-time for Balthier and so, without a backward glance to Halim Ondore or Ashe, he started walking briskly towards the estate. Perhaps the Marquis had been in too much of a hurry to dispose of all the evidence when he fled his estate?

'Balthier!' Ashe's imperious cry stopped him in his tracks and he looked irritably over his shoulder as she rose to her feet and hurried over to him.

' I demand to know what is going on. What proof do you have that my cousin is trying to kill Larsa, what possible motive would he have?'

Balthier sighed, that was the sticking point. While as the evidence of the last twenty four hours provided circumstantial proof of a Bhujerban conspiracy against Larsa it did not provide any immediately obvious motive for such.

' What possible motive would a son have to murder his father?'

Balthier shot back even as his own words caused him to flinch deep in his soul; Balthier knew a thing or two about patricide after all.

Thankfully his answer seemed to have had the desired effect on Ashe and she did not stop him as he started to jog towards the main building.

'Vaan, take my uncle to the Beirluge and inform my Secretary of State what is happening. I shall remain here in Bhujerba.'

Balthier heard Ashe's command to Vaan but didn't really register the meaning. His focus was on finding Ondore's personal office and sifting through his personal documents and correspondence for any shred of evidence he could find.

' Damn it all.'

He swore when he found Ondore's office in a state of immense disrepair, the evidence of magicked fires having left scorch marks on all the fine furnishings. More destressing was the fact that most of the contents of the over turned filing cabinet was still smouldering on the carpeting.

He was beating at some of the still burning pieces of paper and parchment when Ashe caught up to him.

'What are we looking for?' She demanded briskly, surveying the destruction of the once plush office with a keen eye.

Balthier pulled the contract from his inner coat pocket and unfolded it before handing the most important piece of evidence he had so far to Ashe.

'An example of Joaquin's signature to match the one on this contract and if we are very lucky his own copy of that contract. Though I doubt the gods will be so kind.' He added in self-deprecating tones.

Ashe nodded absently as she read over the contract for the murder of Larsa Solidor and then without a word shoved the paper back to him and moved with forceful efficiency towards one smoking pile of papers scattering the scorched carpet.

Balthier couldn't help the smirk that touched his lips as he watched her, he always enjoyed watching Ashe when she was determined to take charge of a situation.

Becoming aware of his idly scrutiny of her she looked up from her crouched position, burnt papers clasped in each hand and glared at him.

'Are you planning on just standing there, Balthier? Or perhaps you would have me do all the work for you, Pirate?'

Balthier chuckled and turned to find his own mounds of paper to sift through. They worked in concentrated silence for a goodly amount of time as the night faded and crept towards a pale dawn. As the moon waxed and waned and the sun threatened the horizon with its presence he became increasingly irritated that even when he found a document in good repair he could not read it anyway.

'Bloody Bhujerbans, why can't they write in Ivalic's like the rest of the civilised world.' He grumbled.

Balthier was an accomplished and exceptionally well-educated man in most disciplines but he had never had a gift for languages. His grasp of the principles of the standard Ivalic grammar and spelling was rudimentary at best and an understanding of foreign languages completely eluded him.

He looked up from his annoyance to see Ashe smirking at him from across the room, 'Having some difficulties?' She asked him all too sweetly.

He smoothed out his glare and tried to affect a tone of nonchalant lack of concern. 'Some of these documents are in Bhujerban and I cannot read them. I shall simply have Fran do it later.'

Ashe quirked an eyebrow highly amused and thrust out a hand, 'Give them to me and I shall translate them for you.'

Balthier suppressed the wince of annoyance he instantly felt. Of course Ashe would be able to read Bhujerban, her mother had been born Bhujerban and as Queen she would be expected to be fluent in most of the major languages of Ivalice.

Acknowledging that he lacked the requisite skills to do a proper job without her he sighed and rose to his feet taking the papers with him. He settled down beside Ashe on the carpet and could not help but see the superior glimmer in her eyes as she perused the documents.

'My cousin is not bright but neither is he stupid. I don't think we shall find anything that conclusively links him to any crime.'

Ashe informed him coolly and Balthier nodded dejectedly; then, as he turned to look at her, he noticed something that he really should have seen earlier had he not been so intent on ignoring Ashe as much as possible.

She was bleeding. The square neckline of her simply white and yellow dress was stained crimson as was her neck and the ends of her hair. Frowning Balthier shoved her hair away from her neck and sucked in a sharp breath.

'Balthier, please, this is not the time.'

Ashe tried to bat his hand away irritably as she continued to scrutinise the papers in her hands, completely oblivious to the jagged, still oozing gashes the Rebe's claws had left to trail down her neck and collarbone.

'Balthier, what are you doing?'

Ashe snapped when he reached for her and tilted her head back with one hand at the back of her skull and placed the palm of his other hand over her throat. She tried to jerk away from him but his grip on the back of her head was secured by a firm clasp of her hair.

'You're bleeding.' He muttered as he summoned up white magick to heal the gashes, not deep but undoubtedly painful, if Ashe was not too stubborn to admit any pain that was.

'It is nothing. We have more important matters to attend to.'

She tried to pry his hand from her neck but he ignored her and concentrated on his magick. He didn't much like magick as a general rule but he had a knack for white magick in small doses.

He let his palm grow warm against the bobbing of her throat, the frantic thundering of her pulse jumping against his palm, and then he let his fingers glide over each hot, throbbing line of pain that scored her pretty white throat with almost teasing gentleness.

Ashe eventually decided that allowing him to complete his task would not be too great an imposition on their time and surrendered herself over to his ministrations. He tilted her body back against his arm, one hand still cradling the back of her head and leaned protectively over her as he continued to trail magickal healing from his fingertips down the smooth stem of her neck towards the modest neckline of her dress.

Ashe shifted until she was all but lying in the cradle of his arms, her head tilted back accommodatingly, back arched almost like an offering. An offering he was supremely tempted to accept. He was not hungry but suddenly he was starving for something he had refused to let himself acknowledge he had craved all these months.

One long gash ran from just below Ashe's right ear down her quivering throat to strike, diagonally, across her upper chest towards the soft mound of her left breast and Balthier, rather ironically, congratulated himself on how good a job he had done of ignoring her that he had failed to notice _that _particular mark until now.

He let his finger trail over the scratch, cool healing magick dancing over her skin and knitting the shallow red tear back together again leaving not a blemish behind.

All thoughts of murderous conspiracies, poisoned Marquises and similar weighty matters fled his mind. His thoughts narrowed down to a simple awareness of Ashe's quivering throat and warm, responsive body in his arms.

The sudden, intrusive wrapping on the door of the office nearly caused Balthier to drop Ashe to the carpet and the mood shattered as they were both rather rudely awakened to the reality of the situation and their current location.

Ashe managed to elbow him painfully in the stomach as she scrabbled dazedly out of his lap and sat up, flushing richly and trailing fingers down her neck to check his handiwork. Balthier kept his eyes averted and simply stared down at the papers he could not read because he did not trust himself to look anywhere else. The knocking on the door repeated itself.

'Come in.'

Ashe called in a voice that was just slightly breathless. The door opened and Fran stepped into the room. Instantly she looked from Ashe's flushed face to his and Balthier saw the rather droll look that glimmered in her round, inhume eyes. She could undoubtedly smell the lust in the air.

'Hey, Ashe, we've got trouble.' Vaan said as he crowded into the office after Fran, then cast his widening eyes over the mess in the room and whistled sharply.

'Wow. Somebody really didn't want anyone to find anything did they?'

Ignoring Vaan and his capacity to state the bloody obvious Balthier turned his attention to Fran. 'You lost the flag ship I take it?'

Fran shook her head slowly and he recognised the slight stiffening of her shoulders as self-reproach. 'Within the border of Rozzaria. A Rozzarian flying patrol intercepted, allowing the Marquis' vessel to enter but not myself.'

Balthier raised an eyebrow, 'Interesting. Did you show them the Archadian official writ of passage?'

Fran shrugged elegantly, 'They were disinclined to give me opportunity. Unusually aggressive they were.'

'Hmmm, that _is_ interesting.' Balthier chewed on this morsel of information, even as annoyance that their quarry had escaped gnawed at his gut.

At that moment all inside the office became aware of the sound of many feet advancing on their location and the sounds of numerous voices raised in confusion and anger.

Vaan rubbed a hand to the back of his neck bashfully, 'Like I was saying. We have a problem. The Bhujerbans know somethings wrong and they're coming up to the estate with flaming torches and stuff.'

Ashe rose to her feet immediately, ' Then I must address the people and reassure them.'

When Balthier, Fran and Vaan all looked at her she frowned irritably, 'In the absence of either my cousin or uncle Halim _I_ am the next in line to govern Bhujerba. I am an Ondore on my mother's side, after all.' She pointed out impatiently.

Balthier, who knew all that and had already considered a number of ways to use that very fact to aid in the capture of Joaquin Ondore if needed, rolled his eyes and waved a hand dismissively.

'Yes, yes, your Highness, but what are you going to tell them, hmm?' He demanded with droll impatience.

'How precisely are you going to reassure the good citizens of Bhujerba? By telling them their leader has most likely been poisoning his father? That he is involved in a conspiracy to kill the Archadian Emperor and has now fled into the bosom of the Rozzarian Empire leaving them, essentially, without a government? Yes, that will reassure them to no end.'

Ashe glowered at him, her level gaze heated ice, before she shook her hair away from her face and spoke with the utter conviction of someone raised to believe in the precept of divine right to rule.

'I shall tell them that their Marquis is missing and my uncle Halim is gravely ill, but that they need not fear for in the stead of either man, I, the Dynast Queen, shall administer their governance.'

Balthier felt his eyebrows shoot upwards towards his hairline and saw Fran's do the same. Even Vaan looked a trifle disconcerted, 'Er, Ashe are you sure that's a good idea? I mean with everything that's going on in Rabanastre...'

He trailed off when Ashe fixed him with a lethal, basilisk stare, swallowed hard and managed a tremulous smile.

'Um, I mean, go Ashe.'

He amended weakly, jumping out of the way as Ashe marched through the doorway with all her mighty, offended, regal dignity before her.

In her wake the other three occupants of the room all looked to one another in silence for a few seconds before Fran shook herself into action and moved towards the door.

' We must follow, she may need our aid.'

Balthier and Vaan followed Fran out of the office and towards the open balcony of the great hall, where Ashe had already begun her address to the citizen's of Bhujerba who filed into the gardens around the Ondore estate faces upturned towards the heroic Dynast Queen as she spoke.

' Friends and citizens of Bhujerba, tonight has been a night of many ill occurrences and no doubt you have heard many ill tidings and foul rumours as dawn has broken.'

Ashe managed to cast her voice down through the glooming dawn air to reach the crowds below almost effortlessly.

'I can tell you only this, that my uncle, Halim Ondore, is gravely ill,' Ashe hesitated and tilted her head so she could cast a questioning glance towards Vaan, who had been charged with seeing to Halim's safety.

' I had some of our guards fly him to Mount Bur-Omisace.'

Vaan said demonstrating in that action a shocking level of forethought and intelligence. Ashe smiled just a fraction in gratitude before continuing her address to the people as if she had never hesitated.

'... and has been taken to Mount Bur-Omisace for his convalescence.'

Cries rose from the crowds demanding to know the whereabouts of their Marquis and was it true that agents of Archadia had invaded the estate? What was her majesty Lady Ashe doing in Bhujerba for that matter?

Ashe raised her hand gesturing for silence, ' Please, please, people of Bhujerba, I cannot answer all your questions. All I can tell you is that the Marquis, my dear cousin Joaquin, is not present and I do not know where he is.'

Balthier shared a glance with Fran, it was clever of Ashe to feign ignorance in regards the Marquis' location. If she stated she knew he was in Rozzaria it would pose uncomfortable questions no one had answers to right at this moment. Politically ignorance was safest for the time being.

The crowds below were understandably disconcerted by this announcement and Ashe had to wait for them to settle once more.

'I came here yesterday to Bhujerba to see to the health of my uncle. Instead I have found many worrying and inexplicable things that leave me concerned for my cousin also. For this reason, as a good child of house Ondore, for I have never forgotten that the blood in my veins is half your blood, the blood of Bhujerba, I promise you I will not rest until these mysteries are resolved and Bhujerba's Marquis is restored.'

Balthier smothered a wry snort of amusement. He could admire Ashe's cleverness, reminding the people of Bhujerba that she, through her mother, had claim to Bhujerban nationality in order to reassure them of her good intent, and her last statement was nicely ambiguous as well. She would see a Marquis restored to Bhujerban governance but did not state which one.

Yes, Ashe was a fine politician that was for certain, with a natural gift for oration. She continued to offer cleverly worded reassurances while ducking the issue of whether or not the Marquis was in trouble, or what precisely was wrong with the seemingly much more popular Halim Ondore, for another hour.

When Ashe finally left the balcony and moved out of the sights of the people of Bhujerba who were being dispersed by the sainikrits and guardsmen, she looked like a ghost in the watery dawn light.

'Vaan have you managed to speak with Secretary of State Tnoy? Does he know of what has happened?' She asked Vaan faintly.

' Yeah, he and most of your privy council are gonna be here in a few hours.' Vaan nodded.

'Good. That's good.' Ashe nodded her head, almost slurring her words.

Frowning Balthier moved towards her and was therefore in just the right position to catch her when the Dalmascan Queen's knees gave way and she collapsed towards the floor.

'Ashe!'

Vaan lunged forward as Balthier hauled her upright, tilted up Ashe's lolling head, balancing her once more in the cradle of his arms and looked down onto her pale, exhausted face and her fluttering eyelids.

'Balthier...'

She clutched at his coat lapels as she tried in vain to gather her balance and hold herself upright, struggling as she was to hold onto consciousness.

'Balthier we must...'

She began to sink floorward again and, accepting that Ashe was never going to be able to walk towards the damask couch pushed to the corner of the room, Balthier swept her up into his arms. Ignoring her momentary complaint that she had not given him permission to carry her, he did just that, walked over to the couch, and deposited the exhausted monarch onto it.

Ashe was not one to suffer weakness well, especially her own, no matter how justified it might be, and he had to push her down onto her back as she tried to sit up, still gripping his lapels in a surprisingly tight grip.

'I think you need to rest your Highness, now that you've declared yourself de-facto ruler of not just Dalmasca and the remnants of Nabradia, but Bhujerba as well.' He added drily trying to gently pry her fingers from his coat.

Ashe slapped at his face weakly as he freed himself from her weakening grip, 'No, shut up, listen.' She demanded even as her voice failed her.

'Balthier. We must talk about sheep.' She declared with surprising earnestness before her eyelids once again descended over her hazy grey eyes.

Balthier wondered briefly if he had misheard her. Or perhaps a lack of food, nearly being throttled to death, and then taking over the governance of an entire purveema had taken so much out of Ashe that she was now delirious.

Whatever the case Balthier gently folded her hands against her chest and stroked her hair from her face.

' Your Majesty we can discuss livestock of any description for hours on end if you command it, once you have slept and eaten a decent meal.'

He humoured her and only then, as she finally succumbed to sleep, did he see the very familiar yellow and green band of metal adorning her right thumb.

He blinked in surprise and then looked up sharply to see Vaan looking furtive and Fran looking almost too impassive (which by her standards was quite impressive) he found himself scowling.

It was, in his opinion, stretching the rules of credulity to breaking point to imagine that the ring on Ashe's thumb could be anything but his, and he knew he had certainly not given it to her. So how could she have come by it?

Fixing Fran and Vaan with a deadly stare he said calmly, but in the tones of one who is holding onto his temper by a thread,

' I think perhaps one of you has some explaining to do, hmmm?


	10. Chapter 10

**The Ondore Estate; Bhujerba**

_A/N: The darkened room didn't help much but I think this marathon near daily update thing is coming to an end, this chapter has exhausted me!_

_Also I would like to warn any reader with a delicate disposition... this chapter is a roller-coaster! Expect angst, anguish, tension, romance and considerable melodrama. ;)_

_P.S Sapereaude13 I'm borrowing one of your lines from your review (chapter 9) because I liked it, hope you don't mind!_

* * *

' I am perfectly well. I do not need all this food, truly.' 

The Bhujerban attendant managed to convey a look of disdainful incredulity yet still retained the proper respect as she began filling a gold gilded plate with an over-abundance of food.

Ashe, stomach twisting and knotting with audible hunger, sighed in defeat. The food shortage in Dalmasca had forced her to enact a food rationing system in her territory and the palace and the royal household was hardly exempt from such. In fact Ashe had been eating even less than was available so that the surplus could go to the people who needed it more.

'Sir Tnoy, you have had the opportunity to converse with the Bhujerban ministers?'

She addressed her Secretary of State, the most senior member of her privy council, a thin, shrivelled man who resembled a prune with protuberant eyes, cleared his throat and reluctantly put his cutlery down. He had been attacking the breakfast spread with undisguised enthusiasm.

'I have your majesty. It would seem that Bhujerba is facing a recession. The revenue from the Lhusu mine has been diminishing since the advent of peace, both Rozzaria and Archadia having less need for magicite to fuel their military expansion.'

Ashe sipped from her freshly squeezed glass of fruit juice and thought over this news. 'We had suspected such a slow down in Bhujerba's economy, are you saying it is worse than we thought?'

Chancellor Fidore spoke up, 'Considerably, Your Majesty. Your uncle Halim's efforts towards the Imperial resistance put considerable strain on Bhujerba's treasury and the recent decrease in demand for magicite, Bhujerba's main commodity, has meant that debts have remained unpaid.'

Chancellor Fidore, a small, rotund man with a luxuriant reddish-blonde beard and a completely bald pate was her favourite of all her councillors, the man was opinionated with a tendency to patronise Ashe, but he was the least antagonistic towards her.

Ashe tapped her fingers on the white table cloth of the large table in arrange in the council chamber of the Ondore Estate, meditatively. 'A motive then. Men can become desperate when faced with a depleted gil purse. Perhaps that is the reason for my cousin's actions.'

Ambassador Tallhana, the Dalmascan envoy to Bhujerba, cleared his throat nervously.

'Majesty, if I may..?'

He awkwardly raised his voice for permission to offer opinion. A slim, young man with bookish looks and speckles perched on his nose; Tallhana was not a privy councillor and was only present for this breakfast meeting because he was the envoy based in the Ondore household.

The other members of her council looked at him with irritation but Ashe smiled and nodded her head.

'You have something you wish to add, Mr Tallhana?'

'Majesty, I would like to beg your forgiveness. It is reprehensible of me that I could have been unaware for so long of what your uncle had endured.'

Ashe smiled as warmly as she could upon her envoy, a man who had once served as a member of the Rabanastran resistance and a liaison with the resistance in Bhujerba.

'Mr Tallhana, I have no need to forgive you as you have done no wrong. It was your reports back to court that prompted me to come and investigate for myself.'

The man smiled faintly reassured and licked his lips furtively, 'In that case Your Majesty, I have some other news. I can't prove it, but I have heard from sources I trust that the Marquis Joaquin has taken out a number of substantial loans from members of the Margrace family over recent months; loans that have no record in the official accounts.'

'What? Then why have you not said?' Fidore demanded before Ashe could speak.

'Are you quite stupid boy? How could you keep such to yourself?' Tnoy put in his own two-gil worth of insult.

Ashe smacked her spoon down on the table top with deliberate force. 'That is enough. Mr Tallhana,' she turned from glaring at her council members to look on the envoy, who cringed back in his chair, 'can you corroborate this information?'

'I –I can try, Your Majesty.' He stammered.

Ashe nodded, ' Then I suggest you speak at once with master Balthier, or his partner Fran. This information is pertinent to their investigation I should imagine.'

Tallhana leapt to his feet, enthused by the prospect of escape from this meeting of the high and mighty of Dalmasca and the thought of getting back to doing what he did best, dealing with _real_ people.

' At once Your Majesty.'

Ashe returned to her breakfast, aware of the quick, sharp looks her councillors were sharing across the table between one another.

' That's another thing we need to discuss, Your Majesty. The Pirate.'

Fidore began failing to see that it was not appropriate for him to be dictating the topic of discussion, but at least attempting to broach the change of subject with some politeness.

This was more than could be said for her minister of foreign affairs, master Loggia. 'It is completely disgraceful, Majesty, that you are pandering, again, to the whims of that _sky pirate.' _

Ashe could feel her eyebrows climbing her brow and her lips thinning in disgust and outrage that this man could speak to her in such a manner.

Fidore cleared his throat awkwardly, 'Now, now, Loggia, that's no way to treat Ashe. I'm sure she's got a good reason for what that man is doing here, don't you, honey?'

'I thought the man was supposed to be languishing in an Archadian gaol right now? He was extradited after all.' Tnoy added superciliously.

Ashe was resisting forcefully the powerful desire to stab either Tnoy or Loggia in the eye with her fork.

'_Balthier _is acting under the auspices of Judge Magister Gabranth and the Archadian Senate investigating the attempted assassination of the Emperor. If you wish to know precisely what he is doing in Bhujerba I suggest you speak directly with him.'

She snarled with icy fury. Throwing down her napkin on the table top, as she had become aware that she had been twisting the cloth in her fists in impudent fury, she fixed cold eyes on Loggia.

'And if you ever speak to me in such a way again, sir, I shall have you up on charges of treason so fast you will not know what hit you. Is that understood?'

Instead of being sufficiently cowed by this threat, which was completely sincere, Loggia merely curled his fleshy lip spitefully.

'Madame you behave like a love sick girl defending her lover. Need I remind you that you are a queen and should act as one?'

'Loggia that's enough man.' Fidore exclaimed as Ashe launched herself up from her seat, rounded the table and stood, shaking with fury, in front of Loggia.

'How dare you?' She spat at the middle-aged, refined and debonair man who managed to look glossy and well fed despite the dire straits his Queen and his kinsmen were in.

'How dare you speak to me like that? Where were you when my palace was sacked and my father murdered? Where were you when I was forced to live under the streets of my own city in fear for two years?'

Ashe turned to encompass the other two members of her council in her diatribe, had she had a weapon in hand she feared how she might use it at that moment.

' You dare tell me how to act? Gods damn you, you filthy, smarmy traitor. Do you think I don't know that you weathered out the occupation in your villa in Ambervale? You spineless lump of Chocobo excrement.'

Ashe leant down so she could snarl straight into Loggia's face, watching the man's heavy-lidded censorious eyes widen in alarm as she spoke.

Afraid that she would strike the man, Ashe spun on her heels and paced, like a she-Couerl, back and forth down the length of the table, flinging her heated words outwards like throwing darts to strike at the men who had for too long been given the benefit of the doubt.

'You think I don't know that all of you, my father's trusted advisors, his councillors, capitulated and rolled over like spineless, snivelling worms when the Empire invaded? But I forgave you! I offered you your positions back, allowed you to serve on my council, and for three years you have mocked me, attempted to dictate to me and done everything in your power to line your own pockets at the expense of your people!'

Ashe whirled to face the three stricken men, face contorted in rage, 'You…..you bastards! I gave you everything you have, you wretched fools, and by the gods I can take it from you.'

Fidore opened his mouth, expression a mix of self-interested concern and patronising sympathy, 'Highness….'

'No! Do not dare speak to me.' Ashe snarled pointing a finger that the man was lucky did not send a bolt of thundaga flying through the air to strike his greedy heart.

'I am the Dynast Queen. I risked my life and everything I had to give to see my kingdom free while you all sat on your fat asses in your safe hiding places and waited for someone else to do the job for you.'

Ashe was almost panting with the intense desire to inflict grievous injury on the slack-jawed, stunned and vacuous looking men before her. She clenched and unclenched her fists spasmodically and tried to breathe through her rage.

'You do not deserve to decide the fate of your kingdom. You are the least of my subjects not the greatest and it is time you knew that.'

Loggia was opening and closing his mouth with the gaping stupidity of a landed fish. Tnoy had gone an unhealthy shade of fuchsia in the face and was stiff as a board in his chair. Fidore looked pale and equally stricken mute.

Ashe was thoroughly sickened by the whole thing and suddenly exhausted. She stared at each man in turn for a few long seconds, and then, in a voice crackling with ice and thunder and controlled by force of will alone she spoke.

'Get out of my sight, all of you, before I do something _you_ shall regret for the rest of your miserable lives.'

She stood with her hands braced against the table top and her head down, sucking in deep breaths of air, as the three men rose in an inelegant rush of uncoordinated limbs to leave the room and escape their Queen's unleashed wrath.

'Well, I don't quite know whether to applaud or run for the hills after that performance. Are all your council meetings so exciting?'

Ashe almost lost her balance as she sprang from the table, assuming a fighters stance from sheer habit, searching out the owner of that familiar, sardonic voice.

'What are you doing here Balthier?'

She demanded her voice still harsh from her confrontation with her councillors as he strolled over to the table from where he had seemingly been hiding behind a lacquered screen at the back of the room.

Wearing a black leather vest emblazoned with electric blue embroidered velvet and his usual ridiculously tight trousers and sandals he sauntered over with smirk in place and plucked an apple from the breakfast spread.

'Eavesdropping; it's what spies do.'

He said in a voice that seemed to be meant to irritate. He seemed highly amused by her distress and at that moment Ashe wanted to stab him with a bread knife.

'Well, now you have had your fill of secrets you can get out.' She hissed.

Balthier's lips twitched as if he was struggling not to laugh. He moved towards her and leaned, hip-cock, against the table and with astonishing lack of regard for his health, reached out a hand to deftly stroke an errant wisp of her hair from her brow.

'Now, now, Highness, no need to be like that.' He chided cheerfully.

Ashe shied away from him like a skittish Chocobo and paced restlessly towards the window.

'My envoy Mr Tallhana wishes to speak with you, he has information regarding...'

'Regarding undisclosed loans from Rozzaria, yes I know.' Balthier interrupted, 'I was listening the whole time, remember?'

'Well then what are you doing here? You have assassins to catch, or is Larsa's life less important to you than irritating me?' She demanded petulantly, unable to rid herself of her pent up anger.

She had fantasised about finally telling her councillors what she thought of them, but now she had, she found it was less than satisfying.

No doubt even now the three men were conniving with each other and dismissing her justified anguish as the over-emotional outbursts of a foolish girl not fit to rule.

'Highness, please, I would always choose irritating you over any other activity.'

She went instantly rigid as Balthier slipped his arms around her waist from behind then she elbowed him hard in the stomach and tried to twist out of his grip.

'Let go.' She hissed when he grunted in pain but did not let go of her.

She tried to stamp on his foot to perform the same manoeuvre on him that had worked so well on Lord Anover, but Balthier knew how she fought and kept his feet out of stamping reach.

Ashe managed to twist around to face him, hand coming up in a flash to strike across his smooth shaven cheek, knocking his head to the side with a tinkle of silver ear-rings.

Balthier did not so much as loosen his grip on her waist, as he rolled his mouth and jaw and turned back to her with an ironical amusement in his eyes.

'Feel better now _Princess_?' He purred dryly.

Ashe choked on something that was neither laugh nor sob as the intense, frustrated knot of anguish loosened inside her and she felt like she could breathe again. Raising a suddenly shaky hand she touched the red mark she had left on his cheek.

'Balthier I….I'm sorry.' She admitted ashamed at herself for lashing out like a spoiled child, especially when she was not even angry at him.

'Hmm, forget it, Highness. I am quite accustomed to the sting of the back of your hand, after all.'

He let his smirk widen, a challenging glint in his eyes. 'I dare say I must be quite fond of it now, the number of times I have invited a slap from you.'

Ashe snorted derisively. It was certainly true; she had lost count of the number of times he had driven her to strike at him. It did not speak very well of her character, that was for sure.

Ashe let herself lean into him and reached out a hand to pet at the embroidery covering his vest.

'This is new.' She murmured stroking over the brilliant blue swirls of velvet patterning the supple leather vest.

'I'm glad you like it, Highness.' He replied lazily as he propped his chin on the top of her head and held lightly in his arms.

Ashe sighed deeply and slipped her arms around his waist, she was past caring if somebody came into the room now and saw her embracing a pirate.

'Do you ever miss the old days, when it was just the six of us and we were free to travel all over Ivalice as we liked?' She murmured wistfully.

Balthier actually laughed at that causing Ashe to look up at him in surprise. Balthier was rarely without his habitually smirk but she could count on one hand the number of times she had ever heard him laugh out loud.

'Things must be bad indeed for you to be getting nostalgic for our Occuria banishing sojourn three years ago, Highness.'

Ashe shook her head and let her brow rest on his shoulder again. 'I am serious. I am not saying it was easy, gods know it wasn't. Yet it was simpler then. I knew I was right. We all knew who the enemy was and it was one that could be defeated.'

Unlike the unconquerable foes such as hunger or a kingdom with no fertile land to grow crops to feed its people; unlike a dead and polluted wasteland that was once her husband's homeland. A land she had pledged on her throne to restore and had no means to do so.

Balthier's hands stroked up and down her back and down the length of her arms to trace back up to her shoulders. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

'Things always look rosier in memory, Highness. At the time, I seem to recall, you had just as many reservations and fears regards your actions, but you overcame them and you triumphed just like you will now.'

Ashe sniffed, 'And I recall that your primary concern was in inveigling your way under my skirt.'

This induced another laugh from Balthier who gave her behind a friendly pat. 'Yes, well, you know the old saying; as things change the more they stay the same.'

Ashe took a deep breath and steeled her nerves; she had had little time to really think over Vaan's revelatory idea since her cousin's absconding and her take over of Bhujerba but ever since her dreams had been filled with sheep.

'Balthier I must speak with you about something of importance.' She began to draw back from his arms.

He quirked an eyebrow at her curiously, 'Oh?'

Ashe nibbled her lip. She was at a loss as to how she would broach the subject of his sheep.

_Balthier you once almost died preventing the Bahamut from eradicating Rabanastre, now I would like you to give me your inheritance so I may buy my people out of starvation and poverty. What can I offer you in return? Not a single shiny Gil._

Ashe bit her lip on a dark smile, yes, as sweet as he was being this morning she did not think his good humour would stretch that far. He may have his issues regards his heritage and family but she doubted he would merely sign away his patrimony with a smile and a wink.

'Highness?' Ashe blinked when she came back to herself with a start to see Balthier snapping his fingers in front of her face and looking down on her curiously.

'Your thoughts were a million miles away.' He chided her, though he looked more curious than annoyed.

'What was it that you wished to discuss, Highness?'

Ashe looked up at him as her heart thumped loudly in her ears and her chest squeezed down on her lungs. It seemed to her that time stood on its head and all Ivalice froze in this one single perfect moment of expectancy.

Sunlight spilled in through the large bay windows and the breeze that always buffeted Bhujerba fluttered and played with the edges of the gauzy lace curtains. The scent of Bhujerban coffee and fresh baked breakfast pastries suffused the room with a homely warmth.

Ashe knew that she was in the middle of a conspiracy that threatened the leadership of Archadia and Bhujerba. A political storm was brewing that threatened to embroil the nations of Ivalice in a complicated, potentially hazardous feud, especially if Rozzaria had some involvement in the attempt on Larsa's life.

Right now Dalmasca should be her only concern, and certainly it was always her greatest preoccupation. She knew that all the valid reasons she had come up with as to why Vaan's simplistic plan could not work held true now, but in this one moment none of that mattered.

She looked up into the sharp handsome features of the Archadian pirate, the first person she had ever asked aid from in her life that did not already owe her fealty; the first person to grant his aid without that generosity being tempered by duty or honour or self-advancement.

'Balthier…' she began her throat suddenly parchment dry, her heart threatening to tear itself out of the cage of her ribs.

Balthier frowned slightly, undoubtedly aware of her odd mood he replied with uncharacteristic gentleness.

' Yes, your Highness?'

Ashe snatched up his hand in both hers and held it between them, pressed to his chest, in a fumbling gesture.

Almost six years ago Ashe had married Rasler, the noble prince and heir to her fathers closest ally, because it was expected of her and she had, fortunately, been quite smitten with Rasler.

But Ashe was no longer that dutiful, meek princess, who was happy to 'play her part' and hand over the rule of her kingdom to her husband. She was not the girl who would have been content to simply provide heirs and allow the world to turn about around her unobserved or challenged.

She was something altogether harder now, fiercer and more violent, but at the same time she was something greater, with a capacity to give of herself that the sheltered princess in her ivory tower with her dutiful prince had never possessed.

She was a queen and a ruler and she was tired of having her attempts to fly free and rule as she believed was best, thwarted and restrained by people who still saw the sweet and docile daughter of Raminas in her shadow.

She was Ashe and always simply herself, as she had told Vayne Solidor himself, and suddenly she realised she knew what she wanted even if she did not know how to achieve it.

Vaan, she realised with a pounding heart, was absolutely right.

'Marry me.' She blurted out without poetry or artfulness but absolute and bedrock conviction.

'What?' Balthier croaked weakly, unconsciously stepping away from her, but unable to pull his hand free of her, so he ended up tugging her with him.

'Marry me.' She repeated.

Now it was said she felt quite calm and was able to repeat the request in a cool and reasonable sounding voice.

Balthier, looking pale, blinked once, then twice, dazedly. 'Yes that's what I thought you said.' He murmured confusedly.

Ashe let go of his hand so she could hold up her own, the hand on which his ring adorned her thumb. She held it up in the sunlight so he could see that she wore it and then she pulled it free and held it out to him.

She knew that he had not written the note, nor sent her his ring and so she offered him the chance to take back what was his. He could walk away now; it was his choice and she would accept it.

She held out the ring and waited for an interminable amount of time. Seconds became hours and all the while his eyes did not leave her face. He stared at her as if he could see beyond her to some hidden vista into an unknown and unplanned future.

He took the ring from her suddenly cold fingers and closed his fist around the metal band she had grown quite accustomed too. Ashe closed her eyes and turned her head away.

It was fair. It was fair and it was his choice. He loathed being restrained and confined, he would never be content to be her husband, and her husband alone.

She had already stripped him of his chosen career as sky pirate and sent him back to the city of his birth knowing how much he loathed Archades. She had asked too much and must accept his choice.

Quietly and with a calm, bleak acceptance she turned away from him to sightlessly stare out of the window into the cool breezy Bhujerban summer, unable to feel the sun or the wind on her face.

A muttered oath angrily snarled under his breath and strong hands gripped her shoulders and turned her about face once more.

'If you wanted the sheep you could have just said.'

Ashe looked up dazedly into his angry eyes. It didn't really matter how he knew about the sheep. Vaan or Fran might have told him of their little matchmaking conspiracy, though she did wonder that he had said nothing of it until now.

'This isn't about sheep.'

She told him calmly meeting his intense gaze with strange tranquillity in her own. It was his choice. All her cards were on the table and she had no more tricks or feints left to play.

He turned on his heel and walked away from her. She watched him go, offended anger in his every motion. It had to be his choice. She could afford no regrets. It was after all his freedom, the only thing he truly valued, that she was asking him to give up for her.

A promise of commitment he had never wished to give anyone.

He reached the door and walked through it, she watched it slam closed behind him and then, with the controlled movements of someone holding back a grief she was not certain she was entitled to feel, she turned back to the window.

The door crashed back on its hinges as it was abruptly flung open. Ashe did not have the time to turn fully around before arms covered in loose fine cotton sleeves, tastefully and subtly embroidered at the cuffs with blue thread, enfolded her waist, whipped her around and crushed her against a blue and black patterned vest.

'This is a bloody _stupid_ idea.'

She heard his words before he caught her under the chin, tilted her head back with a smooth motion that spoke of long practice, and kissed her with a passion that was fully reciprocated by Ashe in turn.

She tried to bring her arms up to twine about his neck, but he caught her right hand, broke the kiss to turn his head as he pushed his yellow and green ring back onto her thumb.

Then he recaptured her mouth once more, pushing her up against the wall next to the window and Ashe wrapped her hands around his shoulders and her legs around his waist as he hitched her up at the hips, clasping her thighs.

'…..and I'm keeping my bloody sheep.' He snapped peevishly, breathing hard, when they came up for air.

Ashe caught the sides of his head and pulled his lips down to her again, but Balthier managed to tear his mouth free.

'…….I know what your game is, don't think I don't…' He sucked in a steadying breath of air.

His hands splayed across the backs of her thighs, still supporting her body against the wall, Ashe allowed him to have the last word to restore his equilibrium. She had won the war, the least she could do was allow him his dignity in defeat.

'I know you dynast queens are all the same.'

He scoffed, nuzzling her neck while Ashe played with the short hair at the nape of his neck and considered the logistics of how she and Balthier were going to manage to sneak through the estate to one of the guest bedrooms unobserved.

'All you want from a man is his sheep.' Balthier accused, voice muffled as his lips brushed her neck.

Ashe said nothing at all, deciding that the couch behind the lacquer screen would serve just as well under the circumstances. She slipped back down to her feet and led Balthier towards the couch to consummate their engagement.

* * *

_A/N: let's be honest that was all a bit over the top wasn't it?…..But damn it was fun to write!_


	11. Chapter 11

**The Archadian Imperial Palace; Grand Conference Room**

_A/N: hello everyone, here is one last chapter before Christmas!_

_This time the special mention goes to Panzer718 who read through six chapters in one go while bouncing up and down on her sofa and reviewed every one…..thanks!_

_P.S: little warning for some violence that might ….possibly…upset some people. So read on if you dare. _

* * *

Al-Cid sat before them on one side of the huge sandalwood table, his birds arrayed behind his chair, his sunglasses in place. 

'Officially I can tell you nothing.'

He said in heavily accented standard Ivalic tongue; as he tossed his head to knock the thick straggles of black hair from his eyes. Balthier could not stand the rolling, imprecise diction of the Rozzarian accent. It put his teeth on edge.

There was a shifting of cloth on fabric as the other occupants of the room, reacted to that single careful statement. Ashe sitting flanked on either side by Vaan and Penelo cut a sharp eyed to look his way.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow and then turned back to Al-Cid, 'And unofficially?'

He enquired dryly. Technically he had the least right to speak of anyone else in the room; he had no official rank in the Archadian government and was not a recognised representative of any country. However he had never let such trifles as diplomatic etiquette stop him in the past.

Al-Cid Margrace spread his hands in a gesture designed to demonstrate an innocence of intent and spoke as a representative of his country.

'De House Margrace has no quarrel wit' de Lord Larsa.'

Al-Cid hesitated and nodded respectfully to Larsa who sat on Balthier's right side and had seemed content to let either Ashe, Basch or Balthier himself do most of the talking. Larsa smiled slightly and nodded in turn.

'I do not doubt your friendship, Al-Cid.' He assured his unlikely ally warmly.

Al-Cid nodded, 'I stand as your friend, most true.'

'Yes, don't we all.' Balthier murmured under his breath and Fran, sitting on his left, shifted minutely in silent warning to him to behave.

'I am sure that there has been a misunderstanding of some kind.' Larsa was saying.

'House Margrace has been a friend to me since my coronation. I know that House Margrace, much as House Solidor, now stands a friend and proponent for peace in Ivalice.'

Balthier, who had had exactly six hours sleep in forty-eight hours, could feel his patience with the delicate artfulness of the purple prose slipping from the lips of the various heads of state gathered here to discuss a relatively straight forward charge, waning rapidly.

Balthier had spent over a week tearing Bhujerba apart (metaphorically and in some cases literally) gathering incontrovertible hard evidence that Rozzaria had been secretly funnelling large amounts of Gil into Joaquin Ondore's private coffers as well as into the Bhujerban treasury.

He was impatient to get to the meat of the issue so that he could retire to a well earned rest and wash his hands of the whole sordid affair (at least for the next twelve or so hours.)

Interrupting the verbal beating around the bush that he had stopped listening to Balthier cleared his throat and spoke up.

'And what about Joaquin Ondore? Does the House Margrace stand his friend as well?'

'Balthier.'

Basch growled at him from across Larsa and he could almost feel Ashe's eyes boring into him with disapproval. Balthier blithely ignored him and kept his own gaze focused on Al-Cid and his 'birds'.

He had found that watching the Arch-Duke's 'birds' was more informative than watching the courtly trained Margrace himself.

One of the identically dressed 'birds' in the centre of the threesome Al-Cid had bought with him twitched noticeably (at least the movement was noticeable to Balthier who had become something of an expert at reading body language after years of partnership with the undemonstrative Fran.)

Al-Cid shook his head slowly once more, raising a hand to sweep his hair from his face. 'I 'ave never met de younger Ondore.'

Balthier felt a less than pleasant smirk curl his lips, 'Perhaps one of your many siblings has, however?'

He was contravening not just the laws of address to ones supposed social superiors but most rules of polite conversation as well. He didn't care.

He had had to shove his arm, up to the elbow, into the pipe works of the Ondore estates internal plumbing system in search of the hidden incriminating evidence Joaquin had not had the time to dispose of properly.

After those horrors and worse feats that did not bear remembering, even Balthier's manners were strained beyond breaking point, and it didn't help that, for though no discernable reason other than personal prejudice, he truly loathed Al-Cid Margrace.

'House Margrace does not support terrorists.' Al-Cid replied obliquely.

Balthier smirked, 'Good for you.' He replied blandly.

From further down the table Ashe cleared her throat sharply, clearly annoyed.

'Al-Cid, as representative of Dalmasca and Bhujerba in the absence of either my uncle or cousin, I wish to assure you that neither you nor any member of the Margrace Household stand accuse of any crime.'

'Indeed not.'

Larsa nodded emphatically casting a surprised and vaguely censorious look over to Balthier; who tired, irritable and convinced as the others weren't that Rozzaria was involved in the conspiracy against Larsa, merely slouched back in his chair, and curled his lip.

'We have evidence that Margrace Gil paid for the contract on Larsa's life.' Balthier snapped.

Diplomacy be damned, he had not wasted seven months of his life to sit here and be patronised by a foppish dandy.

Al-Cid was not the only one who twitched at Balthier's flat and unapologetic statement. Larsa, Vaan and Penelo, who had never really seen Balthier truly irritated, were surprised by his show of belligerence.

Ashe, who had seen Balthier when he was in a foul mood and inclined to share it, could not believe he was behaving so childishly in front of the future Emperor of Rozzaria.

Basch found himself growing suspicious. He did not trust Balthier's intentions and was half convinced his uncharacteristic display of ire was a ploy of some sort, though admittedly, he did not know to what ends.

Fran had not only seen Balthier in a full sulk but, once, memorably, in a towering rage wherein she had had to restrain him from entering into physical violence. Therefore she was the least surprised by his less than amiable behaviour.

Al-Cid, who knew more than he was saying, simply sighed as he conceded the inevitability of divulging his family's dirty laundry before the sky pirate did it for him.

'I would see dis evidence.' He said calmly.

Balthier smirked triumphantly, having caught the flicker of resignation in the man's features and the almost imperceptible ripple of discomfort that ran through the three birds standing silent sentry at his back.

Basch pushed the file of papers retrieved from all manner of unpleasant and difficult to reach places in Bhujerba across the sandalwood table top to Al-Cid, shooting a veiled, but highly disapproving, look to Balthier.

Al-Cid flicked through the papers, written agreements for the transfer of secret loans to either the Bhujerban treasury or Joaquin Ondore's private funds. Balthier saw him stop on one particular piece of parchment and knew exactly which one it was.

Balthier smirked slightly more widely as he remembered how he had happened to discover the loan agreement signed by both Joaquin Ondore and, more delightfully, Alem Al-Farouk Margrace, one of Al-Cid's illegitimate younger brothers.

It had been well hidden and he would not have thought to look _inside_ the mattress on Ondore's bed had he and Ashe not been….._testing the springs _of said mattress when he became distracted by the unmistakable crinkling sound of paper.

Ashe had been less than impressed when, instead of returning to the original activity they had been engaged in; Balthier had retrieved a small dagger from his discarded belt and gone about slicing the mattress to pieces.

'Dis does not prove dat Alem, my brother, knew of de attempt on de Lord Larsa's life.' Al-Cid pointed out, addressing Balthier directly.

'No. It doesn't.' Balthier accepted calmly. 'But nor does it prove categorically that he _didn't _know that the Gil he so generously loaned Ondore would be put to such a use.'

'Al-Cid.' Larsa interjected. 'As the Lady Ashe has stated this is not an interrogation, nor is it an inquisition.' Larsa glanced reproachfully at Balthier before continuing.

' But you must understand that such a document, found within Joaquin Ondore's personal affects, under circumstances such as these, raise questions that we must have answers for.'

Al-Cid steepled his fingers in front of his lips, elbows on the table top and thick brows drawn down over his eyes,

'Alem is not my friend. He opposes my father's decision to name me successor. You my friend, Larsa,' Al-Cid reasoned out loud, 'are seen as supporting my bid to succeed my father. Dat you and I are allies strengthens my claim, if you were to be no longer de Emperor of Arcahdia….'

Al-Cid trailed off with a provocative raising of his eyebrows and a languid flick of his wrist as again he swept his hair from his brow.

'Dere are many among de Rozzarian war pavilion dat do not share my enthusiasm for peace. Dey see my actions t'ree year ago in aid of de Lady Ashe,' Al-Cid nodded politely to Ashe, who smiled faintly in return. Balthier, seeing this exchange, frowned slightly, 'as a sign of weakness, _neh_. Dis could be a conspiracy to weaken me by attackin' de Lord Larsa, my friend.'

He nodded to Larsa and then let his eyes sweep across the rest of the people gathered on the other side of the table. Balthier, unimpressed with this interpretation and having his own ideas of what was really going on, straightened up in his chair and stared at the Arch-Duke's shaded eyes.

'Or it may be that Ondore had his own reasons for wanting Larsa dead and your brother Alem simply saw a band wagon to jump on.' He mocked.

Al-Cid was nodding, 'Alem is vicious, like de rabid fiend, but he is, how you say, _lazy_. It is his way to see others do his work for him.'

Balthier, sensing the opportunity to drive home his point, glanced from one end of the table to the other before speaking again.

'Perhaps, your lord grace,' He drawled with mocking insincerity, 'your brother had a different objective in mind when he made himself Bhujerba's unofficial banker?'

He let the insinuation hang in the air.

If Al-Cid was as innocent in regards the actions of his brother and political enemy's actions as he claimed he would not have an answer for such a vague question. If Al-Cid was not so naively unaware of what his family had been doing in Bhujerba, then he would have little choice but to address the real meat of the issue.

Al-Cid pulled off his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing long fingers over closed eyelids as he spoke once more.

'Peace is not natural to many in my family. Dey do not understan' it, eh. Many in de government saw Bhujerba as a _stalkin' 'orse_, as you say; de perfect front in which to build up an ally against future aggression from Archadia.'

'By propping up Bhujerba's failing economy?'

Balthier made it a question, though he knew the answer; had, in fact, suspected the truth for some time, since the first inkling had come his way that Bhujerba may be behind the threat to Larsa.

Balthier had played the loan shark more than once himself, in his former career as sky pirate and gentleman criminal; he knew how the game was played.

When he saw only suspicious, wary looks from the others around the table, and Al-Cid seemed to have no inclination to speak up, Balthier deigned to explain.

'Rozzaria's fifth column forced Halim into open revolt against Vayne in the Bahamut battle and in doing so lost Bhujerba her reputation for neutrality. Many Archadian traders stopped dealing with Bhujerba after that; they believed the city state to be in the pocket of the Margrace's.'

Balthier smirked an inclined his head ironically to Al-Cid, 'No offence.'

'None taken.' Al-Cid demurred with no little irony, before taking up the narrative himself.

'Bhujerba's decades long neutrality, how you say, backfired? Wit'out allies she was forced to turn to Rozzaria, to my brother, who saw de opportunity to gain control of de purveema an' it's magicite wit'out de need for military invasion.'

Al-Cid admitted and in doing so conceded he knew more of the situation than he had at first suggested.

'I swear to you my friend,' He looked to Larsa, 'I knew nothing of this until after Joaquin fled Bhujerba.'

Larsa merely nodded but remained silent. On the other side of the table Ashe looked stiff with anger, towards whom, Balthier would rather not know at that moment. No doubt she would take it out on him after this meeting concluded.

'And Joaquin Ondore, being a rather impressively foolish man, by all accounts,'

Balthier paused to nod to Ashe, who had referenced her cousin's lack of native wit more than once, before resuming his speech, 'and no doubt encouraged by Alem Al-Farouk, concocted the notion that Bhujerba's poor fortunes were all Larsa's fault and would be miraculously resolved by having Lord Larsa assassinated.'

Balthier shook his head with grim amusement. 'Though the mind boggles as to how he would think killing the Archadian Emperor would make the blindest bit of difference to his country's, or his personal, fortunes.'

'Perhaps, it is a shadow of the war that motivated such feelings?' Larsa suggested sadly. 'He would not be alone in such feelings against House Solidor.'

'The sins of your forebears do not, and should not, reflect upon you, Lord Larsa.' Basch spoke up in defence of Larsa's plummeting confidence.

'Regardless of any real or imagined fault,'

Ashe said from her place further down the table, 'my cousin's actions are reprehensible and completely unjustifiable. I am ashamed to claim shared blood with him.'

Balthier sighed irritably, 'We can argue over the nature and extent of Joaquin Ondore's culpability when we know where he is.' He pointed out impatiently, looking sharply to Al-Cid.

'I 'ave no good news to bring you, I fear.' Al-Cid shook his head ruefully.

'On discoverin' de nature of my brothers actions and dat Joaquin Ondore had come to Rozzaria I sought out de traitor and my brother.'

Al-Cid sighed deeply, and swiped his hair from his brow yet again with an impatient hand.

'My brother now sits in de palace dungeon for his part in dis conspiracy. Alas, de former Marquis, I regret it much, escaped and I know not to where.'

It was Ashe who broke the ensuing silence that followed that dire news. 'Then my cousin could be anywhere?'

Basch turned to Larsa, 'Your Lordship it is possible Ondore may try once more to take your life. Desperate men with nothing left to lose are dangerous indeed. You must further delay your coming of age celebration and retire to a safe location away from the Capital.'

' No.' Larsa said with shocking finality and just the tiniest hint of childish petulance.

Al-Cid spoke up, 'I must agree wit' de Judge Magister, my friend. I 'ave my troops searchin' de hills of Ambervale for de fugitive but alas, I fear he left Rozzaria almost as soon as he arrived.'

Larsa shook his head, 'No. It is better to lure this man out, by offering him a prime target, so that we may end this once and for all. I will not postpone my celebration and that is my final word on the matter.'

He added darkly when Basch opened his mouth to argue. Then the young Emperor rose to his feet and walked around the table to shake hands with Al-Cid, who rose from his chair also and ruffled the small boy's hair, much to Larsa's annoyance.

'I must leave to report back our words to my father, but I shall return for your celebration tonight, my friend.'

Larsa nodded firmly, 'Please do. Regardless of the actions of your brother I still consider the Margrace family as my allies.'

Al-Cid nodded and bowed curtly to Larsa before circling the table to take Ashe's hand before laying a decorous kiss upon her signet ring.

'My lovely desert bloom, 'ave you received de grain you newly requested from Rozzaria?'

Ashe smiled faintly and nodded her head politely, 'My Secretary of State informed me that the grain to Dalmasca has been received, your lord grace. I thank you.'

Al-Cid waved a hand in limp-wristed dismissal, 'Consider it an apology to you for our earlier reticence, eh?'

Balthier watching this exchange intently resisting the temptation to roll his eyes and instead folded his arms across his chest, a frown puckering his brow.

Ashe had, with canny and somewhat ruthless enthusiasm, seized upon her new status as acting Marquise of Bhujerba to push a fair trade of grain for her starving country on Rozzaria with Bhujerban magicite as the currency.

Of course it would not take long for her people to eat their way through this emergency shipment, but for the moment at least, the food crisis had been abated. Thus Ashe was free to represent Dalmasca at Larsa's coming of age celebration and at these _proceedings_.

Al-Cid and his entourage having finally left, with Basch and Larsa escorting the Arch-Duke to the private docking bay where his airship waited, Balthier took a moment to rub at his temples.

He was tired and he had a headache and all he was truly thinking about was a great deal of sleep.

'You are in unusually combative spirit today.'

Fran murmured as she watched, bemusedly, Ashe leave the room without a word to Balthier, Penelo and Vaan trailing behind her.

'You have angered Ashe.' She added as an afterthought, 'Basch also.'

Balthier lifted his face from the cradle of his hands and smirked humourlessly, 'Basch is never happy with me Fran and no doubt Ashe will get over it shortly.'

Lethargically he hauled himself up from the table and stretched his arms over his head, rolling his neck on his shoulders to ease out the kinks gathered from sitting down too long.

'I am going to bed.' He announced decisively.

Fran quirked an eyebrow at him ironically, 'It is daylight still.'

'Yes, and tonight we shall be guarding the Lord Larsa against homicidal Marquis' instead of partaking of the festivities, or more pertinently, sleeping.' He pointed coolly.

Fran walked with him out of the conference room but parted ways with Balthier as he made his way to the Judiciary building where he was quartered and Fran went to attend to whatever business kept her occupied of late.

Upon entering the quieter parts of the Judiciary building leading to the new annex where his rooms were located, Balthier noted that there were noticeably fewer people and Judiciary guards on watch than he was used to seeing, but wrote this off as people slipping away to prepare for the evenings excitement.

Too tired to be at his most vigilant Balthier entered his suite without more than a cursory look around the main room before crossing to the bedroom. He was working on the back strings of his plain black leather vest when the hackles rose on the back of his neck.

It was only years of instinct developed and honed in the vocation of sky piracy that saved him at all as he threw himself to the side and as someone, previously hidden behind the door to the bathroom, lunged at his back.

To Balthier's great detriment, however, he was not quite fast enough and the impact of something, long and sharp and metallic, puncturing his lower back and driving through his body, slicing internal organs on its route, to burst free between his ribs, staggered him and knocked him forward towards the bed.

Balthier's instinctive reaction to the realisation that he was not alone had saved him from instant death via the piercing of his heart, only to reward him with a slower, infinitely more painful, death.

As he grabbed for the bed post to steady himself, vision greying out, a man of middling height and build caught hold of him and hissed venomously in his ear.

'Bad luck Bhadra. You should have stayed a dirty smuggler and pirate. I had no quarrel with you and your ilk until you interfered.'

Balthier did not scream as the man slowly withdrew the sword from inside his body, but could not keep his feet and slumped to the floor, onto his knees, dragging the bed sheets with him.

He managed to turn his head, as fire and ice cascaded through his veins and his thundering, labouring heart's beat pounded in his ears; with failing vision he looked upon the man who had impaled him.

'Marquis Joaquin Ondore I presume?'

Balthier croaked sardonically before painfully coughing blood. His right lung, clipped and pierced by the wicked rapier in the Bhujerban's hand, collapsed and filled with blood, which spilled thickly down Balthier's chin in a wet rush.

Grey and white dots ate at his vision as he struggled to stay upright on shaking forearms and refused to let his eyes leave the wild and blood shot gaze of Joaquin Ondore.

All this time spent looking for the renegade Marquis and he was lurking in Balthier's own bathroom all along; Balthier would have laughed had he not been choking on his own blood.

'All this time and I thought it was Larsa and the Empire that was the evil to be rooted out so that Bhujerba may prosper.'

He only faintly heard Ondore's voice that seemed alike a rushing wave of muffled sound receding like the crashing ocean surf, as his arms gave way and he slumped onto his side; hacking and coughing onto the carpeting.

'But I have been watching. Oh, yes Bhadra, I have been watching my cousin and you these days in my estate. I saw my cousin, greedy little Ashelia, take over my country and use my magicite to feed her people. How dare she? How dare she think she has the right to rule my country?'

Ondore, dressed in the brownish leathers of a labourer and looking less than well-groomed, almost foamed at the mouth in his fervour, pacing the floor before Balthier, who clung to his life by sheer force of will.

'Then I see the virtuous and just Queen Ashelia rutting like a whore with a sky pirate. Ha! But I did laugh until she said she would make _you!…..You _another piece of Archadian scum, her Consort. That's when I knew who my real enemy was.'

Balthier, who was breathing shallowly through his nose and trying not to vomit up any more blood, hands pressed to the oozing exit wound in his upper chest, struggled to focus on the madman when Ondore crouched beside his head and caught up Balthier's short hair to jerk his head up.

'Oh no, Bhadra, you don't die yet. You must live a little longer so that my cousin can be made to suffer!'

Joaquin Ondore doused Balthier's wounds with a potion to seal the entry and exit wounds but this did little for the more serious internal injuries.

'You are going to wish you had never been born, Archadian scum, when I am through with you; do not worry though, Bhadra, for your suffering will be as nothing to what awaits my cousin Ashelia.'

Joaquin Ondore's maniacally grinning face was the last thing Balthier saw as he almost gratefully descended into dark and empty oblivion.

* * *

_A/N: Aaaahahahahah! And more evil laughter as I wish you all a happy, healthy and felicitous Christmas! _


	12. Chapter 12

**Imperial Palace; Archades**

Ashe sat rigidly still on a hard backed chair in Larsa's private chambers within the Imperial Palace as all around her some of her closest friends and former comrades in arms gave way to panic.

Ashe herself could not move; it was taking all her will power to continue to breathe calmly in and out. The effort to mechanically fill her lungs and then exhale before starting the process again was the only thing that kept her from screaming.

' If Joaquin makes an allegation against the Lady Ashe's honour, if he implies that the Archadian government and Dalmasca were working together to bring down Bhujerba, there is enough ill-will towards the Empire for many to believe such.'

Judge Magister Zaagabaath was saying grimly as he, Larsa and Basch stood around Larsa's desk, discussing political fallout when they should have been sending every available Imperial soldier out looking for Balthier.

Ashe, who knew she should be doing something but could not think what, looked down at the paper clutched in her fist. The paper wrapped around the purple and pink ring clutched so tightly the edges of the metal band broke through the paper and cut into the flesh of her palm.

Lying on the floor by her feet was a simple box, lid thrown askew, the contents of which, a white shirt still sodden with congealing arterial blood so that it appeared almost dyed in the stuff, spilled out of the box wetly.

Ashe had been dressing for Larsa's party when a courier had bought the box, wrapped like a gift, to her rooms. Inside the box had been the ring nestled on a bed of blood soaked fine cotton and the letter in Joaquin's handwriting informing her that while Balthier was not yet dead, he would be very shortly.

_Do not worry dear cousin, I will send you the Imperial bastard's heart when I am finished with him. You may keep it close as all else is stripped from you. All Ivalice will soon know you as the filthy, traitorous whore you truly are. _

Ashe had held onto her composure as her heart had gone into near arrhythmia and raised the alarm to summon the guards, both hers and Larsa's.

The sight that had met her, Basch and Fran when they had forced open the doors to the rooms Balthier had been using during his stay in Archades, would live with her in her nightmares until the day she died.

The three of them had stood around the thick, dark, viscous pool of blood marring the rich creamy carpet, the cotton bed sheets spilled in trails from the bed and imprinted with a bloody hand print where he had fallen and taken the sheets with him.

She did not know what was worse. To know he had been ambushed, gravely injured and abducted without anyone knowing, or that he had put up a fight, perhaps screamed out for aid, which had gone unanswered.

Ashe remembered also the look on Fran's usually serene and placid countenance. Nothing so overt as rage or fear, but a fine trembling had taken her from the tips of her ears to the pointed toes of her steel-clad feet.

The pupils of her reddish eyes constricted to ferocious slits, Fran's sensitive nose had quivered and she had stated with fatal certainty, destroying all faint and improbable hopes that might have taken root in Ashe's mind,

'It is his blood. The wound was grievous.'

Then without a word she turned in a swirl of silver hair and left the room and the building. Basch, who had followed her, had recently returned to Larsa's rooms alone stating that Fran was attempting to 'track' Balthier's scent, having found traces of his blood along the riverfront.

Ashe, without Fran's senses and constrained by the very real fact that her cousin seemed to have turned his murderous attentions from Larsa to herself and Balthier, could do nothing but wait.

_Wait. _

Wait like she had when Rasler had gone to fight in Nalbina; she remembered the still, unnaturally silent night. How utterly motionless and dry it had been without a wolf howl or the chatter of crickets and insects to serenade her as she lay awake in her marriage bed.

The remnants of rose petals from their wedding night had perfumed the still, dead air, she had spent the silent hours imagining a battle raging behind her eyelids as she lay, sleepless, in the centre of that big bed.

The dawn had bought with it the stench of funeral pyres and war, her husband of six months draped across the back of Basch's Chocobo, dead, the flies gathering on his eye lashes as the heat rose with the sun.

_What would tomorrow's dawn bring? _

Ashe surged to her feet, accidentally knocking over the chair she had been sitting on.

'I cannot do this any longer. I cannot simply do nothing!'

The other occupants of the room, Basch, Larsa, Vaan, Penelo and Judge Magister Zaagabaath all turned to her with varying expressions of concern and surprise on their faces.

Basch stepped away from the group who had gathered around Larsa's desk each sharing useless opinions and formulating plans that they would not enact. She knew they were all essentially waiting for news from Joaquin, hoping that he intended to ransom Balthier's life for clemency, but Ashe knew better.

Joaquin was too spiteful to do anything but kill Balthier. He would do exactly what he had promised in his letter. He would carve out Balthier's heart and send it to her.

It was ironic that although she had fought such a battle with the fickle pirate to lay an incontrovertible claim upon his heart, it would be her hated cousin who would truly claim the contested organ.

Ashe pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes tightly against the swell of her emotions, eyes dazzled by the prismatic light of unshed tears. Basch's wavering form loomed up in front of her.

'My Lady, perhaps you should take in some air.' He suggested solicitously reaching for her arm.

Ashe jerked away from him, tears burning away in anguish. 'I am not an invalid, sir. I have plenty of air in here.' She snapped furiously.

Basch simply looked at her with his weatherworn and peaceful face; he was not wearing his armour, as he, like everyone else in the room, had been preparing for a night of festivities not a rescue mission.

_It was telling, was it not, that no one had bothered to change their clothes. It would seem the pirate must look to rescue himself. _

Laying one large, warm hand upon her shoulder Basch leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

'Courage Ashelia. Think always that you are queen; he will live and you will see him again, but only if you marshal your judgement.'

Ashe jerked her head up to see the tiny smile playing on Basch's face. 'You don't even like him.'

She pointed out petulantly. Balthier had elaborated at great length on his on-going feud with Basch and her former Knight's over-protectiveness towards herself and disapproval of any relationship between them.

At the time she had found the thought of her former protector and her lover sniping and bickering with each other for the last six and a half months highly entertaining, now it just added to her sense of helplessness that Balthier was not here to continue to do so.

The thought that Balthier might never utter another sardonic put-down or snide comment again, sent a searing wave of rage and panic through her body.

Basch smiled, deftly taking her arm and walking her to the balcony, despite her earlier protests that she did not need any fresh air.

'I would sooner have the pirate here, with us, so that I may continue to find fault with him, My Lady. However I put my faith in the fact that Balthier is resourceful and cunning and far too stubborn to die.'

Basch told her with a faint, dry smile and Ashe snorted with a sniffled, abortive attempt to laugh. Being outside in the Archadian summer breeze did help a little, she felt less claustrophobic.

'Be honest Basch, Joaquin is not going to ransom Balthier, is he? At least not for a price we shall be willing to pay.'

The words left a foul taste in her mouth, but they were true. Even if Ashe was willing to forego her duty to her people and Dalmasca as a whole and hand herself over to Joaquin as he might likely demand, no one else would let her.

_The life of a pirate is only worth the rope used to hang him. _

She had heard that phrase from Vossler's lips, when he had first caught up with her in the Ogir-Yensa sandsea, to discover her in the company of sky pirates and street urchins. His words had a chilling prescience now.

Basch looked grim and she wondered if he would attempt to lie to her as he never had before. She watched him watch the sky cabs that flitted by beneath the Imperial Palace tower.

'No, my lady. I fear that it is vengeance he wants. He must know already his life is forfeit and has decided to wreak as much pain on those he deigns responsible for his failure to kill Larsa as he can before he is caught.'

Ashe clenched her fists around the metal rail of the balcony and gritted her teeth. 'Then how can you tell me that I will see him again?'

Ashe shook her head fiercely as the breeze blew her hair into her eyes and tears threatened again.

'Perhaps he was dead from the first blow; perhaps Joaquin's letter merely seeks to mock me?'

_Dear cousin. I have your precious pirate. Thought he was so clever but he is not looking so clever now. Come to me alone at a location I will provide you or I will send the pirate back to you in pieces._

Ashe twitched and forcefully wrenched her thoughts from the mocking echo of her cousin's written words.

'I do not believe that.' Basch said firmly and then in softer words, that were nevertheless difficult for Ashe to hear.

'He would not have bothered to take the body with him, but left it hoping you would find it.'

Ashe bit the inside of her lip but swallowed hard and accepted the sense of his words. Ashe was a warrior; she knew how heavy a dead body could be. It would be a waste of time to remove the body from where it had fallen.

'He could be dead now though. He may not have survived the journey to wherever Joaquin holds him.' Ashe said softly.

Basch sighed, 'My lady, we cannot _know_ anything. Remember, however, that Balthier was once presumed dead on Bahamut and returned alive and well. A man who can survive _that_ should not be underestimated.'

Ashe nodded vaguely not really registering his words as her thoughts drifted back to how happy she had been only a little over a week ago.

Her people's food shortage had been resolved, at least for the time being, and she had the means (via the Atholl sheep) to ensure Dalmasca had a better bargaining hand for future negotiations so that her people never went hungry again.

She had also had _him_. That week in Bhujerba had been so strange, so oddly joyful. There had been tension regards the whereabouts of Joaquin and the emerging conspiracy involving the Rozzarian gil, but that had been, for Ashe at least, a secondary concern.

Especially when every day that went by, and Balthier gave no sign that he would renege on their secret engagement, allowed her to believe that she might actually get to take the husband she wanted.

She had even started to plot how she would introduce Balthier, officially, to Dalmasca and what problems and complications might arise.

Such as how to get around the fact that he was a former (not particularly reformed) sky pirate and an Archadian citizen, and that Archadia (primarily the Senate) may not look kindly on the Atholl lands converting to Dalmascan control.

It all seemed another lifetime ago to Ashe now; a fantasy. Surreal like a lovely dream where life was as one wished it would be and not as it truly was.

Today had been her awakening and she longed to close her eyes and fall back into that sweet dream again.

'I asked him to marry me. I thought I might actually be allowed to be happy.' She said in barely a whisper, but Basch stiffened in surprise beside her.

'Majesty!' Basch exclaimed.

Ashe turned to face him wearily, 'You were wrong Basch. It was never Balthier who pursued me; it was _I_ who pursued him. This is my punishment. I wanted too much and now Balthier suffers for it.'

Basch simply stared at her for a moment, his expression giving little away, but that lack of expression seemed to be all the condemnation Ashe could stand. She turned away to stare with sightless fury at the blue sky and wispy white clouds trailing the open expanse.

A single, traitorous tear slipped free to score down her cheek as the breeze raked over her face and stung her glistening eyes.

A rough, calloused finger deftly caught the tear and Ashe turned almost involuntarily towards Basch who smiled at her with a kind, almost amused, expression.

'Awake Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca.' He murmured echoing the sentiment of the late and lamented Gran Kiltias Anastasis. Ashe started in surprise and frowned at him as his words inadvertently reflected her thoughts from moments before.

'What?' she croaked hoarsely.

Basch chuckled, 'I have been a blind fool it seems. I have been protecting the child I once knew, a child who has grown into a woman who knows her own mind and needs me not.'

He almost laughed, shaking his head with wry, self-deprecating amusement. Ashe wished she could smile for him, to assure him that she had missed his support and would always respect and need his friendship, but she could not.

Basch was a piece of her past that had been restored to her, when so much had been lost forever and it had hurt her intensely when he had left to take up his protection of Lord Larsa.

She cared for him a great deal, but right now all she could think about was the future she had fought for that her cousin had stolen from her grasp.

But Ashe knew her duty as well as Basch knew his, and so reached out a hand and squeezed his large hand as it rested on the balcony rail. She tried to find some words to say but couldn't; failing in her duty. Basch smiled at her softly.

'Have faith my lady.' He murmured softly, 'A man who has something to live for, something beyond himself, can overcome the most insurmountable odds.'

Basch continued in a meditative voice, cupping her hand in his large, rough palms and stroking it soothingly as a father might to calm his child.

Ashe listened to his words with the focus and hope she always accorded him when Basch chose to throw off his usual taciturn demeanour and speak his mind.

'I lived after my imprisonment in Nalbina not for my own sake; I cared not for my life, but to one day make amends to those I had failed. That hope sustained me. Balthier has you, knowing that will sustain him also.'

'I pray that you are right.' She whispered to her former protector, but something in his words shook her from her self-pity and restored some semblance of the Queen who had risked her life for her people.

She looked up to meet his gaze with eyes that were cool and clear once more. 'But you are wrong, Basch.'

She said with sudden vehemence and saw his cool grey-blue eyes widen in surprise and some trepidation.

Ashe yanked her hand from his in order to take his hand in both of hers instead; she squeezed down on his hand, as if to transfer the love she bore him through her skin to his.

'For you see there was never any need to make amends. You have never failed me. You never failed my father and you did not fail Rasler. Nor will you fail Larsa. Your life has value, Basch Fon Ronsenberg, as more than a shield for others.'

It was only as she saw the faint blush of colour flush his cheeks and watched the older man avert his eyes in embarrassment that she realised that until this day she had never said such to him. It was almost unforgivable of her.

'Thank you.'

She whispered; two words she rarely said, just as she rarely said _I'm sorry. _It was just not the way queen's behaved. She might have to start however, once she had retrieved Balthier, alive, from the clutches of her cousin.

Basch allowed himself to smile truly, and fully. 'Then allow me to make a promise to you my lady. We shall retrieve your pirate and when we do, I shall inform Balthier that if he so much as looks at another woman in a way not appropriate for a married man or fails in his marital duties in any way I shall gut him like a fish.'

Ashe, who had been battling useless tears moments earlier found herself fighting a losing battle against a fit of giggles as her mind supplied a beautiful mental image of Balthier's face if …….no _when….._Basch had the opportunity to issue his warning.

Regaining her composure Ashe found herself for no discernable reason feeling, if not better, (she would not feel anything but sick with worry until she found Balthier and saw her cousin dead) then less hopeless and lost.

With a renewed sense of determination and conviction she turned to re-enter Larsa's quarters, Basch at her side.

She would not wait around a moment longer; it was time for her to act. Nothing and no one and in Ivalice was going to prevent her from marrying her sky pirate.

'Vaan.' She called in her most commanding voice. Her Knight looked over, the shadow of impatience and worry clouding his honest eyes.

'Yeah?'

'I need you to go and find the street ear Jules.' She said calmly, pulling off the jewelled bracelet she had put on for the party. 'Use this for a deposit and find out what he knows of Balthier's whereabouts. If he gives you trouble, bring him to me.'

Vaan, grinning from ear to ear, almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to leave, grabbing up the bracelet Ashe tossed to him on his way out.

Maybe Ashe lacked a Viera's senses to hunt down their missing pirate, but she had learned a thing or two about the ways of Archades from the first time she set foot in the capital. A person could find out anything they wished to know if they were willing to pay for the information.

Ashe was ready to pay for it, confident in the knowledge, the _promise,_ that it would be Joaquin who would, ultimately, pay the highest price. Ashe would see to that herself.

* * *

_A/N: I know not a lot happened in this chapter but I realised that Basch and Ashe have had no interaction with each other in this story; so here was a nice little chat between them. I always figured Basch was something of a surrogate father figure to Ashe. _

_Also get ready for a cameo from my favourite villain from the game in the next chapter...can you guess who?_


	13. Chapter 13

**An Undisclosed location; Archades**

_A/N: okey-dokey, this is a very weird chapter. Balthier is having a very bad day which is not getting any better, any time soon! _

_This chapter also has my favourite Esper (not that that is saying much, I found the summons in this game less than inspiring) and my favourite villain! _

_To Panzer718: Good guess, the Bangaa headhunter is a favourite of mine but Ba'Gamnan is currently contractual obligated to appear in my other ongoing story, _War Privateer _so will not be making his scaly presence felt here. Sorry! ;)_

* * *

Balthier, with all the impartiality and analytical cognitive processes at his disposal, concluded that _this _was not a good day.

It wasn't the numbing, debilitating pain from his sword wound. The burning blood flecked fire in his right lung, the swollen abdomen from internal bleeding, or the discomfiture of being tied to a wooden rack at wrist and ankles that made the day dismal. Balthier was a sky pirate after all, he was not unaccustomed to torture.

No, the deciding factor, the lone element that raised this day to the heights of his own personal hell were the two men currently sharing the converted barn, where he was being held captive, with him.

A sky pirate, a deranged Bhujerban and a dead man in a barn….it could be the beginning of one of Vaan's unutterably awful jokes; sadly it was what passed as reality for Balthier this day.

'Tell me what I want to know, Bhadra, and your suffering can end.'

The deposed and discredited Marquis Joaquin Ondore informed him as he stood before Balthier a potion bottle in his hand. With a silent groan Balthier recognised the glowing pink liquid inside the innocuous bottle; a truth serum.

'You want information? I had thought my purpose here was to die a slow and painful death, sir. Had I known I was expected to give an address I would have come better prepared.'

Balthier croaked still managing to infuse the hoarse utterance with the suitable amount of incredulous distain. It hurt to speak just as it hurt to breathe, but clearly his comfort was not the priority.

Joaquin Ondore's fist shot out and struck Balthier a sharp blow to the jaw, wrenching his head fiercely to the side. The muscles of his body, held taut by the positioning of his arms and legs, stretched at right angles from his body, screamed.

Balthier tasted blood and spat, less than thrilled to see one of his back molars drop onto the splintered, sun-weathered boards of the barn loft.

'Speak when I tell you, Bhadra.' Joaquin hissed, spittle decorating his chin. The man was still dressed like an itinerate labourer, unshaven and smelling of sweat, and still inarguably deranged.

Balthier had no real way of measuring how long he had spent as Joaquin's captive. He had tracked the passing of the hours by the slanting fall of sunlight across the floor of the barn in his idly moments and knew he had passed some ten to twelve hours here.

However he had no idea how long he had been unconscious before Ondore and his small contingent of loyal Rebes had healed the internal injuries that had been quietly drowning him in his own blood, revived him, and chained him to a wooden trellis rack.

Balthier had had little to do in that time but watch Ondore. The man had grown increasingly violent and agitated in the last twelve hours and numerous times Balthier had expected to die.

He was more than a little surprised that Ondore hadn't killed him. Had their positions been reversed Balthier was certain he would not hesitate to put Ondore out of his misery.

In fact with every hour that went by that Ondore ranted, cursed and paced the floor before him, Balthier fervently hoped that he would have the opportunity to permanently put Ondore out of both their miseries, very soon.

'I know there is a conspiracy against me. I know that my cousin conspires with the lickspittle brat and the Rozzarian fop to have Bhujerba annexed to their control. I am on to you all. You are tyrants and will not succeed!'

Joaquin declared proudly, uncorking the potion bottle and moving towards Balthier.

Balthier, who had heard a number of variations on this paranoid delusion of Ondore's, nevertheless still widened his eyes at the preposterous notion.

Bhujerba was just not that important. Ondore was a raving, psychotic. Unfortunately he was the raving psychotic Balthier found himself imprisoned by, with his usual unerring ability to find himself muddled in deep waters against his wishes or designs.

Had he truly believed in the gods Balthier would have had a thing or two to say to them about their sense of humour in regards his life. Especially in regards the other occupant of the barn attic, who was worryingly aloof to the current goings on.

Even as the insane Marquis approached with the rag soaked in the noxious, perception altering truth serum, Balthier could not stop his gaze wandering to the far corner of the room, and the man who poked about at the crystallight lamp in abstracted fashion.

Speaking of lunatics……

Balthier had first become aware of the other man's presence when he had woken hours earlier to find himself in a less than desirable situation without the means to affect an escape.

The sight of the heavy-set man with the salt and pepper hair and blue and red frock coat smiling quizzically at him had nearly bought Balthier up into agonised consciousness screaming in terror.

Then he had dismissed the man as a figment of his mental distress, a manifestation of imagination produced by a culmination of his injuries and resultant fever and the after effects of too much healing magick inflicted on him at once.

This conclusion, and the fact that the man could not possibly truly be here, did nothing to reassure Balthier.

Even dead, even as a faintly translucent apparition, a product of an over-worked and pained psyche, Dr Cid was still dangerous.

As if aware of his son's scrutiny the Figment of Cid (As Balthier, in the moments when delirium gained the upper hand over sense, had dubbed the spectre) ambled over to the rack his son was currently pinned to.

At that moment, demonstrating that Balthier's attention was dangerously prone to wander, Ondore doused him with the rag.

Balthier gagged as the filthy rag was shoved forcefully against his bleeding, bruised and swollen mouth and nose. The noxious, head spinning, insidious potion filled his senses. Balthier caught the disingenuously enticing scent of jasmine and lily as icicles and tendrils of frost crawled up into his mind and glazed over his thoughts.

Balthier's consciousness wavered, his vision swirled in a kaleidoscope of broken colours fracturing like shattered glass, before snapping back into place once more.

'Now, Bhadra,' Ondore almost purred, 'Perhaps you will be more cooperative?'

_Tsk-tsk. _

Balthier blinked, his eyes leaving Ondore's, as the Marquis breathed into his face, to meet his father's familiar sharp, brown eyes. _Who is this uncouth fellow, son? _

Balthier, who had been dosed with truth serum in the past and had suffered hallucinations for hours after which, struggled to focus on the delirium inspired visage of his father as the walls of the barn melted around him and dripped like melted candle wax into thick, bubbling puddles.

He could tell this would not be an enjoyable narcotic induced experience, as his mind seemed to be tearing free of its moorings in his flesh and reaching for a sky that contained too many suns of varying colour.

_Ah, I see. He's given you a dose of the infamous Bhujerban poppy, has he? _Cid inquired cheerfully, as he lifted Balthier's chin with a shockingly solid hand and peered quizzically into his eyes.

_I remember that from my days at Ondore University; quite entertaining in small doses. Of course it's a fallacy that the poppy forces one to speak only the truth, instead the psychotropic affects merely alter the perceptions of the recipient until a concerted effort to lie deliberately becomes impossible. _

Balthier, who could have done without the informative lecture at this juncture of time, glared at the spectre of his father only he could see.

'Go away old man.'

He snapped, or attempted to, his words slurring unbecomingly as the drug took affect. Damn Bhujerban's and their psychotropic poppies.

Ondore, whose visage kept splintering and wavering into three distinct copies of the Marquis and then sliding back into one like a deck of cards being shuffled, fanned and shuffled again, frowned at Balthier and slapped his face to attract his attention.

'Who do you speak with, Bhadra? There is no one but the two of us here.'

Balthier smirked triumphantly and shot his father a venomous, smug look, 'There you are, old man; you are not even here, so go away.'

Cid frowned, as he stood beside the rack, poking at the structure curiously. _Hmf, I may be only a manifestation of your subconscious mind, but I assure you I am here. It is as the great Archadian philosopher Philomentas said: 'the mind is the man, what I think, I see, what I see, is.' _

Balthier, who had been forced by his father to take a semester of philosophy at Akademy and hated every interminable, existential moment of it with every fibre of his being, snarled with frustration, unconsciously struggling against the restraints that kept him pinned to the wooden rack.

'I don't bloody care about classical Archadian philosophy!'

Balthier, who never raised his voice, raised his voice now. He had been stabbed, abducted by a lunatic and tied up like a prize ornament, drugged and man-handled. Even the leading man had his limits.

Cid, amused by this outburst from his usually steady-minded son, smirked, taking off his spectacles to clean the lenses with his sleeve.

Ondore, who was beneath Balthier's notice, except at times when he was brandishing an edged weapon, snapped his fingers in front of Balthier's face to capture his hostage's wandering attentions.

'Bhadra, to whom do you rile at? There is no one here, and we do not discuss philosophy.'

Ondore, to add insult to considerable injury, managed to contrive to sound like a reasonable Hume-being and not a raving lunatic when he posed that question.

Balthier, who was fighting nausea, aware that the sky had started raining blood and the floorboards of the attic writhed and suppurated like a million, interwoven serpents, closed his eyes against the visions and wondered why it was, that no matter what slyness or ruthlessness he showed in his nefarious dealings, it was only when he attempted to do good that he found himself in situations of mortal peril.

'Tell me what my whore cousin plans? She would have you, her pet pirate, murder me, would she not?' Ondore screamed.

Balthier, ignoring Ondore with complete distain, pondered for a moment, as again Ondore slapped him to attract his attention, whether it was not time to retire the act of leading man, and become a villain?

'Rozzaria wants Bhujerba for herself. I know it now. You all conspire against me! You must destroy Bhujerba's autonomy for you have always envied our independence. It is all so clear now!'

If Balthier was the villain then he could be the one to rant and laugh maniacally while some other luckless fool suffered from narcotic nightmares and stab wounds to the chest.

Not only that, but he could inflict ridiculous, wildly unfounded allegations such as this on his hapless victims, instead of having to listen to them.

'You will tell me what I want to know, Bhadra, or you will die!'

Balthier, aware of his father rolling his eyes at the disgrace of a madman before him and muttering about new money Marquises, fixed his hot, angry eyes on Ondore and promptly lost his temper.

'Oh, please.' Balthier sneered, wrists twisting against the ropes that held him in place. The ropes, in turn, shredding flesh until blood, warm and thick, seeped down his arms. Balthier laughed, just a little wildly.

'Kill me? You are not going to kill me you pathetic sack of dung. _You need me._ Keeping me alive is the only hope you have of keeping your own miserable little life. Not only are you an incompetent Marquis but you are a useless conspirator and a pathetically inept assassin. We don't _need_ to conspire against you, you arse; you ruined yourself on your own!'

Balthier watched Ondore's eyes widen, not so much at Balthier's insults, which were mild considering the choice expletives and wonderfully coarse descriptive adjectives one can learn if they frequent Balfonheim with any regularity, but at the Quickening he had only just realised the other man had been building for some time.

'You were lucky when you ambushed me.' Balthier continued to harangue Ondore as the man ran across the room in search of the same rapier he had skewered Balthier with over a day ago.

'But instead of killing me then, as any sensible man would,'

As Balthier would have done himself, had he been in the Marquis' shoes (though he would never have been so stupid as to have got himself into such a mess).

'You became greedy, you thought you could force Ashe's hand, have her save you by using me as your leverage.'

Balthier laughed wildly again; yes, he could have a fine career as a villain.

'You don't know your cousin very well, sir. Ashe is a ruthless negotiator. Kill me or not, she'll still see you disgraced and destroyed. After all, I'm sure you remember a gentleman of the name of Vayne Solidor, hmm?'

With a wordless cry of rage Ondore came at him, sword drawn and raised. Balthier, ready for the man, used the rage and Mist inherent in his being, stirred and fed by his pain and his drugged fever, to dredge up something else that lurked in the darkness of his soul.

_Mateus. _

Upon defeating the unpleasantly gender ambivalent Esper from the Stilshrine of Miriam all those years ago, Ashe, clearly wanting to make a point, had thrown the sigil stone to him and said, with a wicked curl of her lip that had first sparked an attraction in him;

_Mateus the Corrupt, a good match for you I think, Pirate. _

Balthier, who had a dislike of Esper's even more intense that his dislike of magick in general, had accepted the Esper to save face, with as much insincere gratitude as he could muster, and used the creature only very rarely.

But Mateus, who was as cold and corrupt as appeared, had stayed with Balthier as a dark shadow in the depths of his soul. Happy to slumber in the dark caverns of a mind as deep and complex as the Esper's own, though considerably less sadistic.

Now Balthier watched the Marquis run at him as if the man was caught under the sway of time magick, his movements sluggish and slow. A wave of icy cold washed over Balthier's tired, worn limbs as Mateus burst into existence in a soundless explosion of Mist.

Mateus slammed down its trident and summoned its frozen minions as Ondore, still retaining in his mania some sense of self-preservation, staggered away and readied a Thundara spell.

_Well done son. I'm glad to see you have overcome that foolish reluctance to use Mist. The power of stones is man's right of inheritance. A sign we are the true inheritors of Ivalice, not the Occuria. _

Cid clapped his hands in applause at the ongoing spectacle; as, fish tail swishing, Mateus threw bolts of Blizzaga at Ondore, who dived and rolled and fled for the rickety stairs leading down to the ground floor of the barn, calling for his magickally attuned Rebes to aid him.

_By the way, son, what happened to Ffamfrit? Now, that was an Esper a man could depend on. _

Balthier was painfully working his hands free of the blood saturated ropes, he cast an irritated look over to his father, 'We gave it to Penelo.'

His arms came free; first the right, then the left, and having nothing to keep him upright and supported, Balthier fell painfully to the floor, his feet still roped to the rack so that he fell in a particularly painful and undignified heap of twisted limbs.

The rack, suspended from the ceiling by ropes attached to the rafters, swayed and groaned, hanging at an angle before coming free at one corner as Balthier kicked his legs free and struggled with numbed and fumbling fingers to untie the ropes.

Behind him the air turned frigid as the Paramina rift as Mateus continued to blast at the gathered Rebe, who had better measure of the Esper than Ondore had. The Marquis having already run away, tail between his legs (metaphorically), as he seemed well practiced in doing.

That was a pity, as Balthier had a real desire to inflict grievous harm on the man. However as a pragmatist by nature and experience, Balthier would first settle for making a successful escape from captivity and worry about just revenge later.

Raising two fingers to his lips, Balthier whistled sharply, summoning Mateus to him. The fish like abomination understood his intention as only an Esper psychically tied into a symbiotic relationship with their Hume host could.

As Balthier belly crawled, despite the excruciating pain that caused him, because he his legs could not support his weight, towards the hay hatch set in the wall of the barn loft, Mateus prepared its powerful parting shot.

_Son, are you sure you have fully thought out the ramifications of this course of action? Throwing yourself out of a barn window may lead to more problems than it solves._

Cid pointed out with a certain bemused concern. The spectral remnant of Balthier's once beloved, almost worshipped, father hovered protectively close as his son whose heart, labouring from his exertions, body screaming from the abuse it had suffered and continued to suffer, dragged himself towards the doorway that was his only chance for freedom.

Gasping for air and having left a bloody smeared trail along the untreated, splintered boards of the barn attic, Balthier collapsed by the hatch and squinted into the sunlight. Had he had the breath, he would have laughed at the view that greeted him.

_Oh-ho! Would you look at that! Well, you always were a lucky boy, Ffamran. _Cid laughed when he saw the stretch of barley fields rolling out before them, the spires and towers of Archades only a little way away.

Balthier recognised where he was instantly. He was in the Tchita Lowlands, the belt of farmland that ran from the other side of Archades from the Tchita Uplands, to the Naldoa coast.

More to the point, almost directly underneath the barn flowed the fetid waters of the Archades canal; the polluted, heavily over-used waterway that passed through the Capital and formed the main barge route for vessels carrying farm goods up to Archades or down to ship out to the dockyards at Sobal Shore.

_Careful son, the water looks placid but the current is strong and you are considerably weakened. _

Cid warned him as Balthier prepared to roll his body over the edge of the hatch, which must be used to lift bails of hay from the loft to waiting barges, and into the canal. A water landing would be marginally less painful than impact with solid ground.

Behind Balthier the air froze. All the water molecules in the air crystallised and came together in a freezing mist that Mateus shaped into its most powerful attack; a hail of chocobo sized balls and spears of ice.

Balthier threw himself out of the hatch as Mateus vanished in that maelstrom of ice, frost, Mist and magick, sending frostbitten Rebes scattering like ten-pins. A huge spear of ice ripped through the roof of the barn, another smashed the floor of the loft and balls of ice blasted through the walls, reducing the entire structure to tinder and slivers of ice.

As he tumbled through the air, falling like a stone, Balthier saw his father's Mist shimmering form peering at him, watching him fall as the barn collapsed in a roar of an Esper's never satisfied fury.

_Good luck son….oh and congratulations! Marriage to a queen, your mother would be so proud! _

The last thing Balthier was aware of other than the unpleasant cold sensation of Mateus' essence seeping back into his soul was his father grinning cheerfully at him and waving as Balthier crashed into the foul smelling, oil choked, water of the canal.

The pain of hitting the water numbed his body and Balthier was not sure if the darkness that obscured his vision was the water as he sank under the surface or if it was his imminent loss of consciousness.

Belatedly realising that a man needed to be conscious in order to swim Balthier had just enough awareness left to curse his lack of forethought before, again, for the second time in as many days, Balthier slipped into dark oblivion.

As escape attempts went, this one might well be the death of him, was his last, ever ironic thought, as he sank to the bottom of the canal.


	14. Chapter 14

**Old ****Archades****; behind the fish market**

_A/N: Just a shout out to everyone who has reviewed...thank you all so much, over fifty reviews! Who-__hoo!!!_

_Also a question, I'm fairly certain I know how Joaquin is going to get what's coming to him__ and how this story is going to fall-out in the end__, but__ I want to know...do you guys want a wedding scene or is that too fluffy?_

* * *

'Oy, look it's not like I don't want to help me old mate, Master Balthier. He's one o' me best customers, but these things have to be done proper, like. I 'ave a reputation and a business to uphold.'

Jules the street ear, the greatest street ear in Archades, explained in the lazy, rather harsh accent of the low born of Archades. Ashe, who had been listening to wheedling excuses of this ilk coming from the greasy haired, unshaven man for the last twenty minutes, lost her temper.

Vaan had returned to the Larsa's private quarters one hour after she had dispatched him with her bracelet to buy information from the street ear only to inform her, more than a little bashfully, that Jules had admitted after pocketing the bracelet that did he know something of Balthier's whereabouts but that it would cost more than a bracelet to make him give up that information.

With daylight ebbing, and every moment wasted another moment less Balthier had to live, Ashe had lost patience, changed out of her celebration clothes, donned her most non-descript travelling clothes and weaponry and left to deal with the street ear herself.

She was fairly sure Basch and maybe Larsa had raised objections, tried to argue that it was dangerous for her to leave the palace, one look from her had silenced their objections however.

Now, ignoring Vaan's hesitant attempt to stop her, Ashe stepped forward out of the protective shadow of the foul smelling fisherman's wharf and towards the street ear who watched her with a mixture of wariness and avarice; the wheels in his mind turning as he calculated the worth, in material terms, the knowledge that the queen of Dalmasca was skulking around Old Archades looking for a sky pirate might bring him.

'You seem to be labouring under a misconception, sir.' Ashe addressed the man coolly, approximating the same sharp, cool tones she remembered Balthier using with the man three years ago.

Jules cocked his head, 'Eh? What's that then?'

Ashe sidled right up to the man. She did not spend a lot of time practicing the arts of subtlety or feminine wiles and did not attempt any now, instead she slipped her dagger free of its sheath clasped to her thigh and rested the blade against the street ear's groin.

'This sir,' She hissed into his ear as she lightly pressed the point of her dagger into his trousers, not enough to pierce the fabric but enough to cause the man to pale visibly and back up against the wall of the fish market, where she pinned him down, 'is not a business transaction. This is an interrogation. You will tell me what you know of Balthier's abduction now.'

You could take the queen out of the war but you could not take the warrior out of the queen. Ashe could play the game of courtly intrigues but in her heart she was a fighter and she knew how to make her _point_ with men such as the street ear.

Jules still had some defiance left in him however, he attempted to affect a cocky stance, though this was not overly effective with the business end of Ashe's poison dagger pressed against his family jewels, and smirked at the queen.

'Or what? Not very queenly to threaten a man now is it? an' me such a good pal o' ol' Balthier.'

Ashe poked at him gently with her dagger and watched the smirk fade from his dirty face as the very tip of the blade broke through the fabric of his trousers but left his flesh momentarily unscathed.

'Tell me Jules, do you know what a eunuch is?' She asked the man, almost sweetly.

Jules, sensible enough to realise he was not in the strongest of bargaining positions at the moment and wishing quite dearly that he was dealing with Balthier (who had never pulled a knife on him or threatened his precious parts) than this savage queen, shook his head nervously.

'Err, no.' He admitted.

Ashe raised up on tip-toes so she could whisper in the man's ear, the smell of sweat, old, dirty leathers, and unwashed hair rising from him unbecomingly.

'Would you like to find out?'

With the deft motions of a queen who still spent at least two hours a day practicing her swordmanship Ashe used her dagger to cut away the crotch of the man's trousers.

Jules yelped in terror and shrank away before realising that his underwear and manlihood were still intact and turned a dusky shade of red in the face, as Ashe smoothly and calmly put away her dagger.

'A'ight, a'ight!' Jules declared angrily though he readily gave up in the face of an ice queen with a dagger who was clearly not afraid to use it. Some things were more important than Gil, after all.

'All I know is that Tarre over by the barge lock loaned out his barge to a group o' Rebe late last night. He saw 'em load some'it that looked like a big roll o' carpet onto the barge 'cept carpet don't usually bleed an' they 'eaded out towards the Tchita Lowlands, that's all I know!'

Ashe exchanged a quick look with Vaan, who still looked a trifle shaken up by Ashe's unorthodox, but undoubtedly effective, interrogation of the street ear.

'Where do I find this Tarre?' Ashe demanded.

Jules gave her directions and a passable description of the man in a surly voice but did not offer any resistance, the street ear clearly wanting to scuttle away into his hovel somewhere, change his clothes, and hide.

'Ashe, err, I mean Amalia.' Vaan caught her arm as she led the way towards the canal tow-path where this Tarre was supposed to be.

Ashe turned to face her Knight irritated by his delay. Did he not realise that every moment wasted was a moment that Balthier did not have to waste? In her mind's eye she kept seeing and hearing Balthier screaming for help (except the man was too proud to do any such thing, so instead she saw visions of his mutilated body before her.)

'_What?' _She almost snarled. Vaan let go of her arm abruptly and took a hasty step back.

'Well, um,' Vaan gathered his wits, 'Don't you think we should go back to the Larsa and get, I don't know, reinforcements or something?'

Ashe, who knew that she would never be able to leave the Imperial apartments a second time should she return, and had no intention of sitting idly by while others made a mess of trying to rescue Balthier from her cousin, shook her head determinedly.

'Reinforcements for what, Vaan? We still do not know where Balthier is! I do not think a bargeman is going to cause all that much trouble for us, in any event.' She snapped.

Then, not letting her Knight formulate a reply, poor Vaan was already regretting even attempting to be responsible and sensible about all this, Ashe turned sharply on her boot heels and marched towards the canal tow path like a one woman army.

Vaan, who could almost hear Penelo's chiding tones in his mind, scolding him for not doing a better job of protecting Ashe, who they all knew could be impetuous and impatient and didn't always think things through (all qualities Vaan had himself so he had some sympathy for Ashe anyway) found himself wishing that Balthier was here. Ashe listened to Balthier after all.

When Ashe reached the tow path she found the man who fitted the description Jules had reluctantly supplied her with easily. He was the fat, balding man in the dirty brown leathers backing hastily away from the tall, lithe Viera with the Perseus bow who was forcibly boarding the man's flat bottom boat.

'Fran!'

Ashe hurried along the bank of the canal towards the rather prettily painted barge in shades and swirls of green and blue. The Viera, who had knelt on hands and knees and appeared to be sniffing the polished wood deck of the barge, lifted her head and flicked her ears when she heard Ashe and Vaan's approach.

'On this boat he was.' Fran told them promptly as she rose to her magnificent height. 'His blood stains the wood though someone has tried to remove the marks. The scent lingers still, warm and alive. He yet breathed when on this boat.'

A wave of relief flooded through Ashe from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, she nodded and clambered on board the barge. The bargeman, Tarre, pressed against the wheel of his boat and simply stared at them goggle-eyed but remained silent.

'We spoke with Jules, he told us my cousin's Rebe borrowed a boat and headed out towards the Tchita Lowlands with Balthier wrapped up in carpet.'

The thought of the proud, incredibly vain pirate being bundled up in a roll of carpet or some other equally undignified material would have delighted Ashe in any other circumstances and she would have revelled in teasing him endless about it. However she could not help but remember Jules' words _carpets don't usually bleed. _

Swallowing down her fear, the sickness in her stomach that told her that although his heart had been beating as he lay on the deck of this barge last night and bleed across the wood, that had been many hours since and a man only had so much blood he could lose before he lost his life as well, she turned and advanced on the bargeman.

'To whom did you loan this boat last night?'

She demanded aware of Fran following her, backing her implicit threat to the man to speak honestly and plainly, withholding nothing, with her silent, inhume presence.

Tarre, who was a simple, honest man who only wanted to make a few extra Gil loaning out his barge, released a deluge of words, like a man at a final confessional before he died.

He explained that he had been paid five hundred Gil for the loan of his barge by a group Bhujerban Rebe, had seen the Rebe loading a suspicious bundle (worryingly man shaped) onto the barge and had watched them steer the boat away towards the farmlands of the Lowlands.

'Who brought the boat back here?' Ashe demanded once the man had finished confirming what Jules had already told her.

Tarre shook his head, panicked, 'No one. I mean I never saw 'em. The Lady Blue – that's the name o' me barge – was just sitting 'ere this morning when I come to work.'

Ashe swore softly but with heartfelt sincerity, Vaan cleared his throat and stepped forward.

'Um, I don't suppose you'd let us have the barge so we could go up to the lowlands our self?' He asked giving Ashe and Fran a careless shrug when they both turned to him in surprise.

Tarre, recognising an opportunity to get out of trouble and away from these strange foreigners, nodded his head vigorously.

'Oh yes, please do, for free, of course.' He managed a tremulous smile and attempted to turn towards the wheel to show the young man, who was the least frightening of the trio, how to steer the barge.

'I can steer this vessel.' Fran intoned calmly. 'We must leave now. Daylight wanes and this barge does not travel at any great speed.'

Without further ado, Fran advanced upon the wheel and the man, Tarre, scrambled away from her hurriedly backing away from his barge and down the boarding ramp, before turning tail and running down the tow path.

Ashe did not bother to watch his escape but instead helped Vaan begin to lift up the boarding ramp.

'Majesty!'

She and Vaan both looked up as Basch, armed but not in Judges armour, clanked up the tow path towards the barge that Fran was manoeuvring away from the bank skilfully.

'Majesty what are you doing here?'

Realising that they were attracting undue attention with Basch running alongside the barge calling out to her, Ashe and Vaan each reached out an arm to the former Knight to help him leap up onto the barge as Fran steered the vessel into the centre of the canal.

After Ashe had informed Basch of their intentions, to seek out her cousin's hiding place, the place he held Balthier captive, Basch shook his head in a mixture of astonishment and annoyance, though little of that carried in his voice.

'My Lady it is too dangerous. We have no way of knowing what force of arms your cousin has, nor his location. This could be a trap.'

'We have faced worse foes and worse odds.' Ashe retorted, irritated. 'But you are not beholden to either myself or Balthier's safety. You may jump to the bank if you truly think this course of action folly.'

She knew she was being petulant, she knew that what he said was sensible, logical and the simple truth. She also knew that did not matter. The day was growing long and somehow, in some part of her soul that defied logic, she knew with total conviction that they had to find Balthier _now_.

Basch sighed, 'My Lady I would stand with you no matter the odds; you know this.' He replied.

'But without some foreknowledge of the state of your cousin's defences, his location, Balthier's condition, you cannot hope to mount a successful rescue mission and apprehend your cousin at the same time.'

Ashe opened her mouth and then closed it with an audible click of teeth. He was right. She had no plan, no strategy and no real intelligence to go on. All she had was the desperate need to find Balthier.

A desire that was far stronger than the desire to find and punish her cousin, yet politically she knew that apprehending Joaquin was a greater priority than rescuing a sky pirate who might already be dead.

Thankfully Fran was not a statesman, nor a politician, and she spoke for Ashe as well when her exotic, dulcet tones interrupted the argument between Ashe and her former guardian Knight.

'I care not for Joaquin's apprehension. I will find my partner; you will either aid us or leave us.'

Basch looked like a man who had just been kicked hard in the head, he stared at Fran for a moment, and then sighed, nodding his head and turning back to Ashe.

'As always My Lady, my sword arm is yours to use as you see fit.'

But under his breath Ashe thought she heard him mutter in the late, golden afternoon breeze, 't'is a pity the pirate could not find time to save himself, nor better watch his back when in his quarters.'

Ashe decided to leave Basch to his darkening mood. Her own mind was filled with storm clouds at odds with the picturesque, quaint prettiness of the scenery they passed as Fran pushed the engine of the small flat bottomed boat to its limit.

Windmills and wooden hay barns, stone farm houses and rolling, gently undulating fields of wheat and barley and corn, waved in varied shades of gold as they passed. The warm sun spilled liquid yellow to dapple the algae strewn surface of the canal, dragonflies and gnats danced just above the surface and water fowl waddled along the rush lined banks.

It was lovely and idyllic and it made Ashe incensed with incandescent rage to think that her twisted and deranged cousin was hiding somewhere within all this prettiness. That Balthier could be fighting for his life behind the facade of tranquillity laid out before her eyes.

It was Vaan who broke the uneasy silence that had fallen between the four occupants of the barge, with a groan of frustration and annoyance as he looked about him.

'He could be anywhere. All these barns and farmhouses look the same. How are we going to...'

But Vaan did not have the time to finish his complaint as a huge roar of sound erupted from just ahead of them. The occupants of the boat could only watch, stunned, as one of the innocuous, wood beamed hay barns lining the bank of the canal exploded in shards of ice and timber.

A huge spear of ice thrust upwards through the roof of the barn, a solid ball of ice as large a cannonball tore apart the near wall of the barn and shattered against the trunk of a weeping willow tree, whose branches trailed into the canal.

Ashe thought she heard a scream of evil triumph, inhume and monstrous, but somehow familiar before the immediate horizon was obliterated by a blizzard of falling hay, either loose or tumbling in knotted bales, ice and Mist.

_Balthier_

Ashe only registered the sight of a man's body falling limply towards the canal from the collapsing barn as Fran, without a moment's hesitation, leapt from the stern of the barge into the canal and sank under the polluted, dark surface.

Ashe's mind only caught up with what her eyes had seen when she realised that she had run to the edge of the barge ready to dive into the waters herself, Basch's strong arms caught her and pulled her back.

'Majesty the water is much deeper than appears and the undertow is strong.' He warned her as she instinctively began to struggle. Giving in to common sense Ashe desisted in her struggles.

'Yes, you're right, Basch.' She admitted in as calm a voice as she could muster.

She was the monarch of a landlocked, desert nation. She could swim in a few feet of water but then even she would admit she did not swim well. If she dived in after Fran it was likely she would need rescuing just as Balthier did.

'It was Mateus. That scream, the ice. He must have summoned the Esper.'

Ashe spoke out loud more to break the terrifying quiet that was punctuated only by the splashes of debris falling into the canal from the obliterated barn as she, Basch and Vaan waited without breathing for Fran to resurface; for some sign of Balthier.

'Look!'

Vaan cried and Ashe immediately strained her eyes to see some slight change in the murky surface of the canal before realising that Vaan pointed towards the banks and the sight of a group of Rebe, covered in ice and hay, running for cover from the devastated barn towards the head high stalks of corn in a nearby field.

Without a word Vaan and Basch dived for the banks, and making swift work of the canal (Ashe was left to wonder where Vaan had learned to swim like that, being as he was, a Dalmascan like she) she watched the two Knights chase down the fleeing Rebe for a moment before turning back to the still, terribly still, surface of the canal.

How long could Fran hold her breath? Surely she should have found Balthier by now? Where were they? What was she to do if Fran had encountered some difficulty? How would she even know if Fran was in trouble?

Ashe had never coped well with being helpless and paced hopelessly back and forth across the deck, scanning the water for any sign of Fran and Balthier. Finally, stomach lurching with relief, Ashe was rewarded.

Fran broke through the surface of the water, long white ears smeared with algae and river silt, her hair slicked down against her head and also covering the limp body she held head tilted up, in her arms, as the Viera swam back stroke towards the barge, towing her partner's lifeless body along with her.

Ashe threw open the fist hatch door on the side of the barge and pulled Balthier's shirtless, pale, mud covered, dripping, body onto the deck dropping down on her knees and checking his pulse and breathing as Fran hauled herself onto the boat.

'He's not breathing!'

Ashe sounded almost accusatory as she rolled the limp body onto his side, trying to ignore the reddish black bruising around the throbbing, badly healed, puncture wound on his lower back, as she did so.

She slapped his back and beat at him trying to get him to breathe and when this failed she rolled him over onto his back, wincing at the heavy, lifeless way his ringless right hand slapped against the wet deck as she did so.

A red haze of furious terror descended over Ashe's eyes as she saw his pale, wane face, his usually impeccably groomed and coifed hair slicked down against his forehead and liberally slimed in detritus from the bottom of the canal, his wide, expressively humorous mouth swollen, bruised and bloody.

She swore on the names of all the gods she had ever known that her cousin would pay for everything he had done to Balthier.

Unable to stop herself her eyes ghosted down the line of his body from his face, his neck, to his bare chest. For a moment it puzzled her that he should be naked from the waist up then she remembered his blood saturated shirt was still in a discarded box in Larsa's quarters, sent to her as proof of his captivity.

The exit wound, again poorly and inexpertly healed, made Ashe want to cry and scream all at once, it was high on his chest, so terribly close to his heart.

But Ashe had no time to waste on her own feelings of horror and anguish. That chest, pale and lean, was horrifyingly still, no breath to fill his lungs, his heart dormant.

Fran was already casting revive spells that failed to flare to life across his skin, suggesting his spirit had already departed. A wave of absolute brilliant fury rose and crested within Ashe as Fran raised reddish eyes that spoke of a similar frustrated pain to meet hers.

'The magick does not take.' Fran said in sorrowing tones.

Ashe lunged forward, hands coming down on the pirate's chest, already glowing with a cold fire of healing magick, with enough force to break ribs.

'Don't you dare fail me now you bastard pirate!' Ashe screamed as she pounded magick into his flesh, _through_ his flesh, to his unmoving heart without finesse or kindness.

'You agreed to the proposal you deceitful, arrogant,'

She readied another spell as she pumped her linked hands against his chest, lowered her mouth to his, forced open that mouth and breathed her insults directly into his lungs, 'manipulative, fickle,' another magicakal cast, another pounding on his still chest, another collection of insults breathed directly into him, 'emotionally distant, dishonest, cad!'

Exhausted she could only wait; half collapsed against his cool, clammy body and watch his stillness through tear filled eyes. Her magick was spent, her lungs raw from giving her life breath to him. The taste of failure was even more foul than the slimy residue of the canal that clung to his lips.

_Please. Please, not you. __N__ot you too. __You were supposed to be different. I can't keep losing you like this. __This is the second time I've thought you dead and it is not fair!_

There was not so much as a flicker of life in his countenance, not a twitch of a smirk on his lips, his eyelids did not flutter.

He lay there, an empty vessel; her magick and Fran's danced around his body but did not quicken. The soul had departed, she had been too late; too gods damn late.

_Please. Please. __Anything. __Anything for him to breathe._

As she lay across his still chest, looked down from barely an inch away onto the clean, sharp, fox-like planes and angles of his face, it seemed to Ashe that grief played tricks on her and for a moment she saw Rasler's wax-like deathly countenance as he lay in his flower strewn coffin.

He mocked her for failing him, for discarding her marriage vows and daring to love another with a heart so much more mature and knowledgeable than the one she had once promised her prince. Was this Rasler's revenge for her faithlessness? Was she to lose her lover to her dead husband?

She dropped her head, heavy and aching, onto that unmoving chest and whispered one last incantation, dredging up every erg of magick in her being. She could not save Rasler; she could not love him uselessly any longer. She could not tie herself to a corpse and she would not let the ghosts of her past claim anymore of her life.

Raising up, her whole body alight with the eldritch fires of magick so strong that Fran, equally exhausted and discouraged from her failed attempts to revive her partner, was forced to back away, Ashe slammed her glowing fists into his chest one last time.

'The leading man can't die!'

She screamed, believing in that one, groundless, arrogant assertion with more conviction than she had given anything except the vows she had taken to uphold and protect her Kingdom.

Her fists came down with a sickening thud into his sternum. His body jerked. Brown eyes flew open, his spine bowed up off the deck of the boat and his mouth opened on a gasping, desperate inhalation, hands scrambling against the deck for purchase.

Brown eyes looked about wildly but saw nothing as magick danced about his body and was absorbed into his pores. His lungs inflated, his heart thundered in his chest and his limbs moved in uncoordinated fashion as life flooded back into him.

Ashe caught one flailing hand, his right, in hers and clasped it. Fran dropped back down beside him and murmured curative spells to aid his desperate attempts to fill his lungs and expel a simply ridiculous amount of canal water from his lungs.

With shaking, fatigued fingers, Ashe worked the pink and blue ring that had been sent to her along with the bloody shirt and the mocking note, off her left thumb and onto his right index finger, where it belonged.

His fingers brushed against her lips as she shakily kissed his hand, the pulse at his wrist a joy for her to feel; brown eyes rolled in her direction as he turned his head minutely, still lying on the deck, and squinted confusedly trying to focus.

'...hello Princess...fancy seeing you here...'

Somehow despite the painful, agonised rasping of his breathing and the fact that he could barely move his head as he lay on the deck of the barge, his voice, barely above a whisper, still managed to convey a debonair manner of ironic detachment that assured Ashe as nothing else could, that Balthier would live.

She choked on a strangled laugh as Balthier closed his eyes and slipped into an uneasy unconsciousness. Ashe, still clasping Balthier's right hand looked up to see that Fran held his left in her own, a true and visible smile playing about the Viera's lips.

The two women looked at each other over Balthier's oblivious body and much to Ashe's surprise Fran winked at her, cocking her head to the side.

'The leading man never dies, indeed.'

She murmured and Ashe exhausted and soaked almost as badly as if she too had dived into the canal, began to laugh even as she wept in relief and exhaustion.

Still it had been close. Leading man or not, Balthier had pushed his luck and Ashe had no intention of letting him slip away from his promises that easily again.

Therefore as soon as it was decent to do so, as soon as she could find a Kiltia to perform the rites, she was marrying this man.

Looking down on his sleeping but animated face, watching the marvellous signs of life dance across his brow, quirk his mouth, twitch his cheeks, she thought that it would be a good thing for Balthier to be conscious and lucid for the marriage, but not essential.

All that mattered was that she bind him to her irrevocably before he went and contrived to be captured, skewered, extradited for his many crimes, or decided to board a passing falling sky fortress and put her through this agony all over again.


	15. Chapter 15

**The private (temporary) quarters of the sky pirate Balthier; Archades**

Balthier decided that he was probably conscious. This was not a definite fact, he was prepared to admit, and in truth while a number of key denominators seemed to indicate that he was once more among the living and lucid, an equal number of factors were sufficiently odd to render this assertion in some doubt.

Primary among those questionable factors was the female Kiltia standing by the foot of his bed giving him a more than a little disconcerted look. Balthier was fairly sure that he was looking equally bemused as he stared woozily at the Helga woman in ecumenical robes hovering like benign death in his quarters.

Balthier, it was fair to say, was not a particularly pious man. He would not go so far as to say he was atheistic or opposed in any moral sense to the prospect of a divine plan or pantheon of indifferent gods. Live and let live was a popular philosophy with him after all.

However Balthier took the view that unless some such divine being should introduce himself directly to Balthier (in this he did not include the Occuria – far too incompetent to be true gods in Balthier's opinion. A god should be aloof in their power not hungry for more) then he would ignore the presence of the divine in his life as they ignored him.

Therefore all in all he was somewhat at a loss to explain what an emissary of Kiltia was doing in his rooms at this juncture in time. Perhaps he was dying?

Balthier considered this possibility as the warm, diffuse lighting in his bed chamber broke into indistinct nimbus haloes that blurred and faded at the edges of his retreating vision and he floated towards the fevered dream state he had spent most of his time in since...since, well, time had somewhat escaped him of late, truth be told.

It was possible he was in fact dying. Certainly he had been closer to death than vital good health the last time he had been fully aware of his surroundings. Still, Fran knew how he felt about religion and he could not believe she would consent to let any well-meaning but unwelcome priestess try to shrive _his_ soul.

Fran... where was Fran?

A memory quivered into life as Balthier, more dreaming than awake, but not unpleasantly so, became aware in a distant sense of familiar voices rising and falling in hushed conversation above him.

There had been a boat. A great deal of water; a number of captive Rebe, a great deal of coughing and spluttering (on his part) and some form of heated debate regards what to do with aforementioned Rebe.

And there had been Ashe...

_You promised __you deceitful, arrogant...manipulative, fickle, __emotionally distant cad!_

A slight frown puckered Balthier's brow as he groaned slightly lying in his warm, clean, comfortable bed, in his warm, well furnished, comfortable lodgings. He remembered, in a disembodied, oddly disjointed fashion, Ashe berating him.

He could not remember the context or exactly what he had done to warrant such abuse (but then one did not always have to have _done_ anything to receive the lash of Ashelia's tongue) but he quite clearly remembered hearing her words and having the sense that he had better look lively and pay attention or he would never hear the end of it.

Strangely he had no recollection of what happened next. In fact, as Balthier's disorganised, fever plagued consciousness struggled to reassert itself and his eyes fluttered open, Balthier realised that he had no idea how he had managed to get from that barn in the Tchita Lowlands to his own bed.

Perhaps he hadn't, perhaps he was in fact dead? Balthier cracked open one eye as the resilient bedsprings reacted to the presence on someone sitting themselves down with either great enthusiasm or considerable annoyance, judging by the way the bed bounced, at the head of the bed next to him.

With the blurring vision of someone with a delirium inspiringly high temperature and a rather virulent respiratory infection, Balthier squinted up at the hazy, indistinct figure sitting with her back to him on his bed.

Almost icily pale hair was nevertheless warmed to a shimmering flaxen hue by the soft ambient light of the crystal torch sconces by the bed. The body looked feminine and delicate loosely swathed in a creamy off the shoulder gown, but Balthier had seen that same, delicately curvaceous form wield a six foot long Obelisk spear with the ease of one twirling a baton.

He almost smiled as he recognised her majesty Ashelia, doing what she did so well; arguing.

_Hmmmm__, but over what, I wonder? _

Balthier supposed now would be the time to speak up, to inform the two individuals gathered in his private chambers (who where here without invitation, clearly lacking the basic good manners to allow him to recuperate in peace) what precisely was going on, but found that he did not have either the energy or, particularly, the inclination.

'Your Majesty I am sorry, I cannot perform the rites of holy matrimony while one party of the proposed joining is...well...mostly insensate.'

The Kiltia was saying in the polite, but harassed, tones of one being harangued by a monarch. The Kiltia sounded both apologetic but firm, though there was a quaver to the voice that suggested that she was aware of how potentially hazardous to her health it could be to make a habit of displeasing monarchy.

'We _are_ engaged. I assure you, he is completely committed to this marriage, but simply...unwell... at this time.'

Ashe on the other hand was clearly hanging on to her patience and her temper by a fine thread. He recognised the tone for he had heard it once before in the aerodrome in Bhujerba when she had demanded (more than a little desperately) that he consent to kidnap her.

'Then, with all due respect your majesty, I would suggest you wait until the gentleman is fully recovered. Upon his recovery I should be delighted to join your two souls in holy, sacred union.'

There was a sharp rustle of expensive fabric as Ashe shifted angrily on the bed beside him. Only her majesty Ashelia B'Nargin could infuse her clothing with her bad moods so that the innocuous rustling of shifting fabric became musical accompaniment to her irritation.

'I cannot wait. The current political climate is complicated. I cannot be sure that he will not contrive to find some way to kill himself in the interim!'

Drifting in a comfortable morass of half-memory and partial wakefulness Balthier smiled faintly, he was in no way lucid enough to deduce the meaning behind the Kiltia and Ashe's altercation, therefore he was able to find amusement (as he often did) in Ashe's bad mood blissfully unaware of the consequences.

Lulled into a comfortable false sense of security he rolled over in his bed, still possessing enough bloody-minded pride not to groan in choked pain as his chest erupted in fire and anguish and his lungs contracted violently at the movement.

Realising that moving position had been a definite tactical error on his part Balthier summoned the strength from somewhere to roll over once more onto his back.

This proved to be marginally less painful, though breathing was made considerably harder. Balthier felt like an entire dance troupe of clog-booted Moogles were performing a particularly lively jig upon his chest.

There was another sharp rustling of cloth, 'Balthier? Balthier can you hear me?'

He opened his eyes and blinked blearily up at the quilted white damask ceiling of his four poster bed.

'...yes...'

He admitted eventually, as dragged into painful awareness, all the constituent parts of Balthier's consciousness began complaining vociferously that he was in a very great deal of pain and someone had better do something about this, _sharpish_.

His view of the ceiling of his bed was obstructed by Ashe's heart shaped face, her small neat features animated by an expression that still held the vestiges of frustration but was soon taken over by a look of relief and sudden triumphant hope that, even through his pain, alarmed Balthier somewhat. She smiled down on him beatifically.

While he was prepared to admit that he was very pleased to see Ashe the fact that she was equally delighted to see him set up a distant warning bell to chiming in his thoughts. Snatches of the over-heard conversation of a few moments earlier came back to him.

Balthier supposed that it was a foregone conclusion that he was quite terminally in love with her prickly, temperament Highness Ashelia (though this fact still rankled in the part of his flighty soul that was as fickle as she had accused him of being), still he had long suspected that her attraction to him was inspired as much by the fact that he was exceedingly useful to her political ends as by his more _aesthetic_ charms.

For this reason, being fully conscious and aware for the first time in almost forty-eight hours since his rescue (not that Balthier was in a position to know this) he was becoming increasingly suspicious as to what Ashe wanted from him _now_, and why this should involve rites from a Kiltia.

Had Balthier not been quite decidedly unwell at the present time, feverish and sick from his infected wounds, the Gil would have dropped long ago.

As it was he was still frowning fuzzily, when Ashe clasped his hand in hers, dropped a sweetly loving kiss to his brow and, in the sort of voice any man would long to hear uttered by a woman as exquisitely lovely as Ashe herself, murmured to him.

'Balthier please tell Sister Estrea that we wish to be married. That you do, in fact, intend to marry me.'

Balthier, who heard the implicit and definite command underneath the uncharacteristic sweetness of Ashe's tone, felt his frown deepen. Marriage; Marriage _now?_The Gil dropped and, forgetting all pain, Balthier surged upright in bed.

'_What?_'

The stunned and outraged exclamation exacted a heavy price on Balthier who immediately began coughing violently, choking and rasping as his lungs threatened to turn inside out and his heart contracted painfully in his chest.

When Ashe held an Elixir bottle in front of his down-turned head he snatched it from her hand with very little manners and struggled to swallow down the contents before erupting once more in rasping, extremely painful coughing.

'Balthier are you well? Can you hear me?'

The spasmodic coughing fit finally subsided and Balthier drew in a half dozen shallow, unsteady breaths into burning lungs and kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut; had he been able to he would have squeezed closed his ears as well.

The light, gentle touch of Ashe's small, sword calloused hands on his bare back caused him to flinch and he irritably shrugged her hands off him.

Balthier had always been steady minded. He rarely became angry or suffered from extreme shifts in mood, but recent events, his fever and the over-heard conversation had decidedly soured his mood.

'Do I look well to you, _Highness_?' Raw from the painful, anguish coughing Balthier's usually smooth, suave voice was a hoarse, snarling ruin.

Ashe's eyes widened at both his tone and the unmistakable anger in his expression. Balthier leaning forward as he sat up in bed because it hurt less that way, and glared up at her balefully, lip curling.

'I nearly _died,_ woman, and you want to get married?'

Balthier rarely lost his temper and rarely gave an opponent the satisfaction of seeing his anger, but on rare occasion when pushed he could be very, very nasty. The famous wit and astute mind turned towards tearing apart the object of his ire one small fault at a time.

Balthier looked into Ashe's grey eyes and saw the ghost of exhaustion and concern and something sweet and fragile in their depths but this invoked in him only anger. He saw in her only the woman who was ultimately responsible for every calamity that had happened to him in the last year, culminating in this last, painful indignity.

Quite abruptly, and primarily because he _did_ love her, he forgot that fact. At that moment he hated her. He hated her for robbing him of his freedom, of stealing from him his happy, pointless existence. How dare she think she could dictate his future?

Lip curling into a sneer of pure contempt he straightened up in his bed and smirked at her, his words had the texture and the painful resonance of poisoned honey and razor blades.

'Or perhaps, your Highness, you merely wish to ensure your country's financial situation by getting your hands on my inheritance?'

Ashe recoiled as if he'd slapped her and something dark and twisted inside him took pleasure in that. Both Balthier and Ashe had completely forgotten the presence of the Kiltia standing as silent witness. They had eyes only for each other.

Ashe's eyes widened and her cupid bow mouth formed an almost childishly perfect 'O' of surprise before anguish swirled behind her storm tossed eyes.

'How can you think me so base, so selfish?' She all but gasped, fingers knotting in a death grip around the edge of the bed sheet.

Balthier cocked his head to the side and smiled mockingly, 'How can I not? Look to the evidence of your own actions, your Highness. You put your own desires above those of your adherents and always have. Ahh, but then you _ar__e _the Dynast Queen so I suppose that is alright; divine right to rule and all that.'

'Balthier, no, I...'

He watched her grow pale and stammer, the master orator suddenly at a loss for words to defend herself, with keen pleasure, anger bubbled in his chest with an acidic burn but he welcomed it, the fever giving strength to an anger and spitefulness that had he been well and sensible Balthier would have realised was both unwarranted and unfair.

Sadly he was neither well nor sensible, 'What, _your __H__ighness_? You were what? Thinking only about your precious kingdom, the debts you owe to your sundry dead? Or perhaps you thought a manipulative and fickle _cad _like myself cannot be trusted to keep his word, hmm?'

Ashe could only stare at him with an expression at once hurt and astounded, she was almost as pale as her dress and suddenly looked like the very young woman she truly was and not the wilful, impetuous warrior queen she was seen to be.

For a moment the quiet rustle of ecumenical robes attracted Balthier's furious stare and he fixed hot eyes on the Helga Kiltia who looked immensely personally uncomfortable to be witnessing such a private and painful altercation.

'Ahh, and the dear Sister.'

Balthier purred, eyes hard and unforgiving, burning with a dark flame that so resembled the wild, enlivened intensity of his late father, that it was painful for Ashe, who had suffered under that same cruel scrutiny from the Bunansa senior three years ago, to meet his gaze.

'You may leave. As you can see your services shall not be necessary at this time, or likely to be in the foreseeable future.'

Balthier did not wait to see if the Kiltia followed his advice, instead with the perfect aim of a trained rifleman, Balthier turned his wild eyes on Ashe once more and sent a verbal bullet straight through her heart.

'Or maybe you remember, Highness, as I do, that in fact I never consented to this engagement in the first place?'

He laughed harshly, the laugh twisting in his throat and gouging flesh, causing him to rasp and cough once more, the exit wound high up on his chest burned with every convulsive shudder and wheeze.

'If you recall, Highness,' He snarled raggedly, as far from the suave, witty gentleman pirate as he had ever been in that moment, 'not once did I _say_ I would marry you, you merely _assumed_,' he laughed again, bitingly as his head reeled, 'and we all know what people say about assumption, don't we, Highness?'

He looked up triumphantly to find Ashe staring at him as if he was a stranger in familiar garb and found himself peculiarly pleased, though the tiny part of his being that was even remotely rationally wondered why he should enjoy hurting her. It didn't matter, however, for the ascendant, fiercely, wildly, angry voice in his head continued to goad him on, pushing him towards greater callousness.

All that mattered, to Balthier at that moment, was the need, ill-defined and inexplicable, to drive her away. He felt trapped both by his weakness (physical and emotional) and by the strange and formless future he had tried hard in the days since her proposal to avoid thinking about.

He had known since the moment he had stupidly, and for no sensible reason, acquiesced at least tacitly, to her ill-conceived notion of marriage that he could never go through with it.

The leading man did not share his spot-light, nor did he surrender it to become the puppet pirate to a queen; a gelding stabled in royal livery, a bird with clipped wings.

He could not do it and the fact that he wanted to, the fact that he had devoted so much thought to how he could stay true to himself and wed Ashe, was the reason, he now decided feverishly, that Joaquin had been able to ambush him in the first place.

'Balthier, you...you are unwell. You are shivering.'

Ashe did not sound like herself, instead she sounded as shaken as she had looked, but the quiet concern in her voice, the refusal to respond with habitual anger against his tirade had the opposite effect on Balthier than Ashe might have hoped; it simply made him more angry.

'Please drink more of the Elixir, Larsa's physician said that you must imbibe two bottles every six hours and you have been asleep for over that time. We will speak more when you are better.' Her hand, stroking in gentle caress down his arm, burned like dry ice. He jerked away.

'Leave me be.' He snapped knocking the proffered Elixir bottle from her hand as he turned on her, before groaning in pain at the sudden movement and resting his aching head against the head board of the bed.

'Find yourself another foolish gentleman, your Highness, for I am through with you. You have cost me dearly already.' He murmured bloodlessly, eyes squeezed closed.

For a moment memory intruded on reality and behind his closed eyelids angry red and black splotches danced maddening whirligigs.

He saw Ashe's face in memory's vision, as pale as she was in the present, but smiling. A smile of such radiant joy, clutching his hand and kissing his knuckles almost reverently as he lay on the deck of a boat like the prize catch of the day.

Balthier groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He didn't like the memory, it tempered the anger he felt and reminded him of what he was trying not to think about. He had very nearly died.

He had been dying; had thought as he sank under the murky depths of the canal that he would die and had known in that moment only regret.

Once upon a time Balthier had promised the scared and heartbroken boy he had once been, when at age sixteen, he had fled his home and everyone he had ever known, that he would live his life from then on without regrets.

He had realised as he drowned that he had failed, for he regretted Ashe. He regretted that he would not see, nor bicker with her, ever again. He had regretted that he had always evaded telling her that he _did_ love her. He regretted that had ever met her (his life would likely have been safer and considerably longer, he had thought at the time, while drowning) and he hated that he regretted anything at all.

Balthier, feeling like a man who has been pickled in ale and bounced along the boardwalks of Balfonheim inside an empty beer barrel simply clutched at his head and gave up pretending he wasn't in tremendous pain, or that he truly blamed Ashe for any of his current woes.

Sadly his madness abated a moment too late, for the soft thud of swiftly retreating footsteps that he had barely acknowledged and mistakenly taken for the Kiltia, had been in fact her Highness Ashelia, swiftly responding to his last snake tongued demand for her to leave him.

Balthier slumped down onto his pillows; breathing laboured and mind reeling and spinning, the once soothing and peaceful lights in the room harsh and caustic to his eyes.

The man in the corner, up to this point silent as the grave (appropriately enough) moved out from the shadow of Balthier's huge mahogany wood wardrobe, clucking his tongue like a mother hen and cleaning his spectacles nonchalantly on his coat sleeve.

_Well, now, that was hardly very nice, was it __Ffamran?_

Balthier glowered at the man in impudent fury, he knew he wavered on the knife edge of unconsciousness and knew, from experience, that neither near death nor slumber spared him his father's presence.

'...go away old man...'

Cid grinned broadly and unrepentantly, before continuing along the lines of the one-sided conversation he had been having with his son since Balthier's rescue from the canal, though Balthier did not fully recall what had been said.

_After all, __Ffamran__, we shall need __Ashelia __B'Nargin __Dalmasca__ if we are to progress with our plans for __Nabudis__. We cannot have you upsetting the young queen with a case of the pre-marriage jitters now__ can we? _

Balthier, choked in pain and raging fever, squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his pounding, wheeling head into his pillows in a futile attempt to escape his father.

He succumbed to a delirious slumber filled with his father's voice, incessant and insidious, whispering plans and formulae into his ear like poison. Balthier, caught in fever's vice grip and alone with his delusions, found himself adding another regret to his list. He fervently regretted he had survived at all.

* * *

_A/N_: _okay _..._um, well, that was pretty unexpected; I had no idea I was going to write this until it came tick-tacking from my keyboard. I mean, I wanted a wedding, you all wanted a wedding, Ashe wanted a wedding__ and __Balthier__...went stark raving nuts! I think it must be contagious_! ..._so I guess, feedback might be in order?_


	16. Chapter 16

**Archades Imperial Palace; Lord Larsa's Coming of Age Ceremony**

Ashe did not think she would ever understand the Archadian obsession with the colour red.

The buildings were red, the Solidor crest was red on a white background, the interiors of their public offices were often festooned with red, and now this.

Standing in the centre of the grand function of hall of the Imperial Palace Ashe allowed herself a quick glance to the huge, monstrous red and black _edifice _that took up most of the cavernous hall.

She had been told that the artificial volcano, complete with its own flaming top and water running down the false crags backlit by red filter crystallights to represent flows of lava, had something to do with the traditional Archadian folk masque that was a mandatory part of this peculiar Archadian celebration.

All around the room the Solidor crest hung from red and white and black banners draped from the high vaulted ceiling and the black veined red marble floor gleamed like frozen interconnected blocks of blood and gore.

The pulsing, inescapable _redness, _for lack of a suitable adjective, was giving Ashe a headache, but as the leading representative of Dalmasca she could not retire from the hall.

She could not allow even a flicker of fatigue or annoyance to enter her countenance in case the ever vigilant gossips and journalists of the rapacious Archades press interpreted any fleeting frown on her part as a sign that peace between Dalmasca and Archadia was to be short lived.

'My lady, you miss your step, eh?'

Al-Cid Margrace took her arm and Ashe snapped her attention back to the immediate here and now, she smiled ruefully at her dance partner as he turned her in a gentle pirouette.

'Dancing is not a favourite past time of mine, lord grace, forgive me for my inattentiveness.'

She smiled with the right amount of courtly charm as she stepped to Al-Cid's left, while he stepped to her right and they clasped arms at the elbow.

This dance always reminded Ashe of the first few steps in a wrestling bout, as each opponent tried to unbalance the other. Ashe supposed this might be the reason she took little pleasure in dance. It was too much like combat training but without the satisfaction of causing grievous pain to one's opponent.

Speaking of grievous harm and those she wished to inflict it upon, Ashe took the opportunity, as she twirled pointlessly, but with all the requisite skill and poise, in a complex series of steps that took her around Al-Cid in a slow orbit, to seek out the pirate with her eyes.

She had neither spoken at any great length nor made significant eye contact with the man since he had summarily rejected her three days ago; of course, he had only been liberated from his enforced bed rest by one day, so avoiding him had not been that difficult.

Trying to banish him from her thoughts had been exceedingly more difficult and in this she had failed spectacularly.

_Find yourself another foolish gentleman, Your Highness, for I am through with you. You have cost me dearly already. _

His words haunted her and had done for the last seventy-plus hours. Rationally she knew that at least some of what he had said, perhaps most of it, could be excused and explained as merely a raging fever and a less than solid grasp of reality (on his part) however that excuse only went so far.

_If you recall Highness, never once did I _say_ I would marry you._

She found him with her eyes on her third twirling circuit.

He was exceedingly well camouflaged, Ashe thought wryly, narrowing her eyes and somewhat rudely turning her head to keep an eye on him as the dance took she and Al-Cid sailing around the room.

He was leaning with a sort of ill-tempered (judging by the frown sharpening his already keen features) lounging grace against one of the huge, red marble pillars, arms folded across his chest.

Against the black veined red marble, swathed in the liquid red light of the crystallamps and caressed by the shadows of the cloister behind him, Balthier almost seemed carved from the walls in his long black velvet coat tooled and patterned with intricate red designs up the sleeves and down the lapels.

His habitually tight, black trousers disappeared into tall boots, which folded in soft leather flaps over the knees and were spit polished to a gleaming shine. Ashe suspected that a white shirt had to lurk somewhere under the coat, but she could see no hint of it.

'My lady?'

Ashe blinked and realised that the dance had finished and Al-Cid was looking down on her curiously, and worse, following her distracted gaze towards Balthier who remained unmoved by the pillar.

Al-Cid, managing, inexplicably, to avoid looking like an under nourished Chocobo, dressed as he was predominantly in yellow, cocked his head, his dark eyes, for once free of sunglasses, quizzical as he nodded politely towards Balthier.

'De pirate is much recovered from his misfortune, eh?' Al-Cid suggested curiously. Ashe felt her lips purse into an angry white line.

'That remains to be seen.' She murmured. _If I have anything to say about it Balthier has yet to experience true misfortune. _

Wisely Al-Cid said nothing further and instead settled for gallantly escorting her back to the table where all the heads of state (barring Bhujerba, Ashe being forced to represent both nations for the evening, though the news that her uncle Halim was recovering well in Mount Bur-Omisace helped to lighten the load considerably.)

'It is a strange night, no?'

Al-Cid broke into her increasingly dark and red tinted thoughts again, but under the circumstances Ashe could not truly resent him for it. She would rather speak with the yellow Rozzarian than think of the crimson and shadow pirate whose words reverberated in her mind and would not leave her.

'I mean to say, that we are so 'appy an' de spirits dey are runnin' free, yet we wait for Joaquin, your cousin, to rise from de shadows at any moment, no?'

Ashe nodded her head, 'Yes. It is hard to give ones self to jollity when Joaquin still remains at large.'

Ashe managed to sound as if she truly listened to the Arch-Duke Margrace as she watched, covertly, Balthier bestir himself and cross the outer edges of the hall passing with long legged decisive strides from one pool of shadows and rippling red light to another.

'De Lord Larsa seems to 'ave no trouble finding de jollity in de festivities, it appears.'

Al-Cid attracted Ashe's attention and diverted it from the pirate to the young Emperor, who along with Basch (his ever attentive guardian), stood by the foot of the hideous, smoke belching volcano, chattering excitably with Penelo.

Ashe herself had picked out Penelo's clothing for the celebration (all the while feeling just slightly perverse in an obscure way) as she recognised that maintaining Larsa's interest in Penelo helped innumerably to maintain good relations between Dalmasca and the Empire.

Ashe smiled as she watched Penelo, looking lithe and graceful in pale green silk loose fitting trousers and bustier with gauzy green off the shoulder sleeves, dance and twirl in a private performance of an old Dalmascan street dance for Larsa's delectation.

Somehow, Ashe's chief lady-in-waiting managed to make such an action seem sweet and charming; which, if nothing else, was a relief for the reputation of Dalmascan women at large.

Ashe chuckled, feeling momentarily better, 'Yes, indeed, I'm glad. Larsa is still a boy, after all, and should be free to enjoy his birthday party. He has waited long enough for this night.'

She smiled at the memory of Basch's resigned desperation over the last few days as her former Knight excepted that nothing was going to persuade Larsa to defer his celebration another moment later and thus Basch would just have to make sure that nothing untoward occurred to spoil the evening.

Al-Cid chuckled drawing her back to the flow of the conversation once more, 'Ah, but you forget, my lady, de lord Larsa is today a man, eh? Fifteen is de age of childhood's end in Archadia. Now he is grown, no?'

There was a subtle, indulgent irony in Al-Cid's heavily accented tones. It was a source of some amusement and trepidation to both Ashe and Al-Cid that Archadia seemed in such a hurry to turn boys into men before they were finished growing.

Ashe caught another flash of a crimson and black shadow stalking across the periphery of the hall, and felt her thoughts darkening once more.

'I am not sure Archadians have the maturity to be called men at twenty-five, let alone fifteen.'

She muttered darkly watching the tall frock coated figure winding in-between the pillars at the edges of the hall.

Ashe only realising she spoke out loud when Al-Cid choked on his swallow of white wine. Demonstrating a highly astute level of discretion and intelligence, Al-Cid chose not to pursue that avenue of discussion.

Twenty minutes later, having politely and collectedly provided carefully worded and politically benign quotes for the Archades journalists regarding how she was enjoying the party, how her uncle Halim Ondore was faring and the current state of her own country's economy and food resources, Ashe was once again free to stake out the location of the pirate with her eyes as she sipped meditatively on her fourth glass of wine.

Ashe had told no one of the altercation between herself and Balthier, this was primarily because it was not widely known that she had '_assumed'_ that they had been engaged and also because while as he may feel that he was 'through' with her, Ashe intended to show him, quite unequivocally, that he was very much mistaken.

Swirling the white wine in her long fluted crystal glass Ashe almost caught herself wishing her benighted cousin would damn well turn up and do something for she did not think she had it in her to suffer through too much more of the evening's festivities.

She also dreaded to think what a papier mache volcano had to do with a boy becoming a legal adult. Somehow she rather suspected she would be better off not knowing.

Feeling hot and awkward Ashe finished off her fourth consecutive glass of wine and looked about hopefully for one of the liveried waiting staff.

She was feeling both rather over-dressed and uncomfortable in the spectacularly elaborate ball gown she had been informed by her tailor and her assorted ladies in waiting that she _must_ wear so that all present would know that Dalmasca was a country, which if nothing else, knew how to turn a half dozen spare feet of cloth of gold and silver into a ridiculously heavy, jewel encrusted gown.

The one advantage to wearing a dress with enough spare fabric to house a large family of Moogles in its train was that it provided innumerable well hidden places with which to conceal weaponry.

She had even considered wearing the Sword of Kings in a back sheath (it was likely that Joaquin would try and kill her this night after all) however she had reluctantly forsaken this idea as it would prove awkward when it came time to sit and dine.

Again, for the umpteenth time, Ashe found herself looking towards the murky crimson shadows of the halls cloisters for the pirate and found him not far from where she had first seen him while dancing a set with Al-Cid.

Ashe, forgetting for a moment that her only interest in keeping the pirate in sight was so she could plot where to best insert a dagger should she feel the need, found herself frowning with curiosity, instead of indignation.

What is he_ doing? _

From her admittedly poor vantage point across the wide hall filled with the well to do of Archades and the sundry representatives of other nations great and small, it appeared to Ashe that Balthier was dismantling one of the light fixtures.

Without conscious thought Ashe was half-way across the dance floor when she remembered that she was meant to be avoiding him. However as she was not the one with anything to be ashamed about, she decided that she would spare him nothing and would demand an explanation from him this very instant.

By the time she came up behind him, taking a minute to ponder the almost serpentine pattern of fine red thread that decorated the back of his coat, Balthier had removed the outer casing of the crystal wall sconce and was poking about at the inner workings with a pair of tweezers and a screw driver produced from the gods only knew where.

It also sounded, though she could not be certain of this over the sounds of the national orchestral choir of Archades warming up for a spirited rendition of the Archadian national anthem, that he was muttering ill-spiritedly to himself as he did so.

'Balthier, what do you think you are doing?'

Ashe demanded, her foot beginning to tap irritably as he continued to tinker with the innards of the light fixture and paid her not the slightest heed. He had already paid her any number of insults she was not about to let him ignore her as well.

None too gently she poked him in the back, rather maliciously close to the spot where the entry wound on his lower back was located. It was petty, Ashe conceded, and not very regal nor dignified, but she thought that it was the very least he deserved.

She was therefore quite secretly delighted when Balthier jolted with fright as if she had just loosed a bolt of Thunder through him.

He then spun on his heel as if he expected to find Joaquin at his back, dropped the lamp casing he had been holding onto his foot and cursed loudly and vociferously enough at the very moment that the choir took a pause in their interminable dirge, that it caused most of the people in the grand hall to turn and stare.

Ashe felt that the scales tipped decidedly in her favour when the famously imperturbable gentleman sky pirate actually flushed slightly in embarrassment and not a little confusion to find Ashe standing collectedly before him and most of the always avidly curious well-to-do of Archades whispering all around.

'Master Balthier I enquired as to what you were doing, sir?'

Ashe prompted him falling back on the stilted politeness of rank and diplomacy which, if he was to follow etiquette, as he must under formal circumstances such as these, demanded that Balthier bow to her and address her with full honours.

Which, though there was still an oddly abstracted light in his startled brown eyes, Balthier did; he swept into a deep bow from the waist with the utmost grace despite the fact that she knew such an action must aggravate his still healing wounds.

'Your Highness, Lady Ashelia, I had not expected to be so graced with your presence. You quite startled me.'

Balthier's voice was still husky from the respiratory infection that had afflicted him and that alone probably hid from the casual observer the dark undercurrent of irony that ran through his words like a cold river. Ashe, who knew the rhythms of his speech all too well, heard it clearly however.

Ashe smiled at him with the brittle cheer that reminded her that a smile was simply another way for a Hume to bare their teeth, and thrust out a hand to him.

'Will you dance sir?'

Ashe could not remember when or precisely how it had come about but once on their journey three years ago Balthier had admitted to Ashe that he did not care for dancing. He had assured her that he _could_ dance, but merely found the whole exploit a tedious waste of time (much as Ashe did herself).

As she could not give him a taste of the back of her hand at present this was the best revenge she could come up with. It was not as though etiquette would allow him to refuse her this dance and she saw by the slight scowl that twitched at his brow that he understood exactly how she had trapped him.

'You do me too great an honour, your Highness.' He demurred with acidic insincerity.

Ashe, revelling in her momentary power, wriggled her fingers in the air between them and smiled graciously, 'Not at all, good sir.'

Exactly five minutes later, having stamped on his beautifully polished booted feet as many times as physically possible and taken every opportunity to grind her heels into his toes as she did so, Balthier jerked her hard against his body and hissed in her ear.

'For the gods own sake, Ashe, what is wrong with you?'

Ashe, pressed against the soft crushed velvet of his coat, her cheek rubbing against the slightly scratchy threads of the embroidery on the lapels, took the opportunity of the moment, thankful that this particular dance required close contact with ones partner, to both savour the sensation of closeness and give his right foot one more hard stamp with her heel.

'Me sir? It is hardly my fault if you do not have the sense to know where to put your feet. Your dance skills are in dire need of improvement.' She punctuated the statement with another heel grind into the soft flesh of his booted foot.

Balthier bit down on another harsh curse, voice growing increasingly hoarse as his temper rose and his breathing began to rasp just a little. Refusing, as she knew he would, to let his pain slow him down Balthier caught her roughly around the waist and twisted her into a blindingly fast pirouette.

He was too fast for her when he reeled her back in from the spin, and kept his feet out of stamping range, they turned about each other, still nominally following the steps of the dance and glowered daggers into the others eyes.

'This is hardly the time or the place for personal disagreements, your Highness.'

Balthier snapped as he quick stepped out of the way of another hard stamp from Ashe's heel, so that instead she crunched her heel down on the glossy marble floor. She slipped slightly and was therefore helpless when Balthier again sent her spinning off his arm in another, dizzying, pirouette.

Balthier caught her again and jerked her off her uneven balance and against his body, 'If you have something to say to me, Highness, say it, unless you prefer to simply cripple me without explanation, hmm?'

'I have no idea what you mean, sir.'

She told him through gritted teeth as they swayed together in perfect synchronicity to the heavy drum beat of the music, the choral singers' voices a low melodious thrum in Ashe's ears.

She made another half-hearted stamp for his feet which Balthier smoothly dodged, as he turned them both in time with the music.

'You are angry with me.' Balthier murmured in softer voice, sensing that her ardour to smash his feet into bloody ruins had faded somewhat.

'This has something to do with the night you brought the Kiltia to my quarters, doesn't it?'

Ashe looked up at his face sharply. Was he honestly attempting to feign ignorance of what he had said, of how he had treated her that night?

'Do not insult my intelligence by pretending you do not remember what you said that night, Pirate. Even if you have little true love for me I have earned more respect from you than that.'

To her surprise Balthier actually looked taken aback by her words, for a moment he stopped in the middle of the dance, bringing her to an abrupt halt also.

'Little true love?' He repeated her words, that same abstracted, slightly glazed look coming into his eyes.

He let go of her abruptly and pressed a hand to his forehead. He groaned before quickly clasping her wrist and meeting her eyes with a suddenly intently focused regard.

' Ashe, I am asking you honestly, what did I say to you?'

Ashe narrowed her eyes and stared at him contemptuously; she tossed her head and jerked her arm free of his grip.

'I won't play these games with you, Balthier. You made your feelings palpably clear that night, nothing you can say can make amends for them.'

She turned away to leave him and the dance. Balthier caught her wrist and jerked her around to face him, almost by instinct Ashe reached with her free hand for one of her secreted daggers in the heavy underlining of her dress.

'Ashe,' Balthier said with utter, intense seriousness, stepping in close to her, heedless of what damage she could do to his feet.

'Ashe, I have only the vaguest recollection of that night. I have only the vaguest recollection of most of the last three days, of which for a great deal of that time I have been quite out of my senses.'

He sounded shockingly contrite, there was not the ghost of a smirk quirking this lips. Ashe thought that perhaps, perhaps, he was not lying to her about not fully recalling everything he had said that horrible night. After all she could not remember a time when he had used her true name so many times in one conversation. Ashe bit her lip.

'You said, and I quote, _find yourself another foolish gentleman, your Highness, for I am through with you. You have cost me dearly already. _You also strongly intimated, in the presence of a priestess of Kiltia, that I was a conceited and utterly selfish gil-driven tyrant who cared nothing for the welfare of others and, more particularly, that you had no intention of ever marrying me.'

For only the second time in their on and off three year acquaintance, which also happened to be the second time this night, Ashe was able to see the pirate in a state of acute embarrassment.

The expression was quickly chased away by an immensely gratifying look of sheer mortification that had the effect of finally making Ashe believe that Balthier might truly not remember what he had said and that he might not have honestly, whole-heartedly, meant it either.

She waited for him to speak; Balthier took a moment to visibly gather his thoughts. Around them the ebb and flow of the music dragged them into another dance as if caught on the tides.

It wasn't so much that one of them led the other in the dance, as they simply, instinctively, moved together in a physical harmony that they could not match emotionally. Eventually Balthier spoke seriously.

'I suppose a few broken toes is the least I deserve if what you say is true, and as you have no reason to lie, I have to accept that I really did say that.'

The slightest hint of a rueful smirk broke free upon his lips, 'I also suppose I should be grateful for our ever attentive audience, hmm? I imagine I would be sporting the imprint of your hand on both my cheeks by now, if not for them.'

Ashe nodded emphatically, though she felt some of the tension slip away from her, the knot of anger and hurt inside her loosening fractionally at the genuine expression of contrition she had seen in his eyes when she told him what he had said to her.

'You should be _exceedingly grateful_, Pirate, had I known how you would behave beforehand, I should not have spent so much effort trying to revive your ungrateful hide on that barge.'

Ashe could not help but feel further mollified by the rather startled and decidedly less than usually arrogant expression of shock that still resided on Balthier's countenance. She allowed him to encircle her waist in his hands as around them other couples took their places for yet another new dance.

The acidic burning pain in her chest began to dissipate and she allowed herself to believe that Balthier had been acting out of spite (and she knew he could be spiteful, his ransoming of Rasler's wedding ring had proved that) and pain that night three days ago and not from any hidden reservations regarding his feelings for her.

The music that swelled up around them was a traditional slow dance; Ashe sighed and released the last vestiges of her anger as Balthier mused aloud on his own recollections of that night.

'I remember that I was less than impressed to find you in an indecent haste to marry me whether I gave _conscious_ consent or not.' He murmured his eyes still abstracted as he rooted through hazy memory to get to the bottom of the problem.

'I do remember accusing you of seeking only to gain access to my inheritance, which I suppose was bad enough considering your efforts to rescue me, but in my own defence I did not remember that at the time. The rest, however, is something of a blur.'

Ashe nodded her head, it eased her considerably to hear him say this and in truth she had dearly hoped it was so, but regardless, there was one thing he had said that would not be so easily explained away.

Ashe looked up at him as they swayed gently to the gentle lull of the music, the red crystal lights and the flickers of live flame from the top of the bizarre volcano, swirling above them creating a pulsing, heated red haze to everything, which no longer inspired an angry headache in Ashe.

She nipped her bottom lip and addressed the one fear she still possessed, 'You did not say yes.'

'Hmm?'

Balthier, was looking over her head towards the shadowed cloisters and the crystal lamp he had inexplicably taken it upon himself to dismantle with a concentrated frown.

'You did not say yes, in Bhujerba, when I asked you to marry me.' She pressed and saw a swiftly suppressed look of dismay ripple over his face that did not seem to match what she was saying. Ashe suddenly had the feeling he was not even listening when his arms tightened reflexively around her waist.

' He couldn't…?' Balthier breathed, face creasing into a scowl as some obscure inspiration struck him. Ashe was too curious as to what had so distracted him to be annoyed that he had not addressed the burning issue between them.

Balthier let her go abruptly, right in the middle of the dance, strode through the other dancers and prowled, coat flapping against his legs, towards the flickering crystal lamps attached to the pillars.

Decidedly put out Ashe swiftly followed him, picking up her skirts and dodging around the swirling dancers on the floor.

She caught up with the easily distracted pirate as he moved towards the door leading out into the quiet, but discreetly guarded, corridor outside the grand hall.

'Balthier we were having a conversation.'

She snapped as she caught his arm and was more or less towed along beside him as he barely spared her a glance and marched, decisively, along the passage way.

'Hmm, what?' He had that tone in his voice of acute distraction.

She had heard an approximation of that same tone when he had been blithely chipper and confident as the Bahamut fell from the sky. Ashe, understandably, was less than thrilled to hear that tone in his voice now. Balthier could stand as the definition of myopic disregard for personal danger at times.

'There is something wrong with the lights. Can you not see them flickering?'

He gestured absently at the wall sconces they passed as they moved at a swift trot gods only knew where.

Ashe noted, as she had done earlier, that the crystal lamps did have a strange intermittent pulsing radiance, but she had dismissed this as a deliberate affect in keeping with having an artificial volcano in the grand hall.

Frowning Ashe tugged on his arm to slow him down, 'What of them? Where are we going?'

'Those lights are not supposed to be flickering like that.'

Balthier reluctantly informed her, in tones that made it clear that this should be blatantly obvious, but in fact would not have been a cause of concern for anyone but him.

'We assumed that your cousin would take the opportunity to strike out at Larsa during the coming of age ceremony and the volcanic eruption, but maybe that is too obvious even for him?'

Balthier continued to take galloping strides down the hall. Ashe, whose head only reached Balthier's shoulder and was equally weighed down by yards of satin and damask cloth and a tightly fitted bodice so dripping with jewels she clattered as she moved, half-ran to keep up with him.

It was times like these that Ashe felt genuinely sorry for Vaan, who had so valiantly struggled through Balthier's lessons on airship flight, pirate etiquette and how to wear a shirt. Balthier hated to explain anything.

Balthier, because the man had the tendency to think his way of perceiving the world was the only logical way and therefore should be obvious to all, made a poor instructor.

Ashe caught hold of the operative terms in his last statement, grabbed hold of his arm and used his own momentum and her strength to turn him about on his heels and force him to a stop.

'That _thing_ in the hall is going to erupt?' She demanded incredulous.

Balthier, already looking towards the far end of the corridor and the set of stairs that led down to the lower maintenance level of the Palace, nodded distractedly.

'Yes, yes. It's symbolic. The young Emperor ascending to his manhood in fire and blood and all that.'

Ashe, who took a moment to be astounded by the ridiculousness of masculinity; an erupting volcano, indeed, could Archadians be anymore vulgar? Shook her head vigorously and kept hold of the pirate who was clearly champing at the bit to do something or other that might very well involve risking his life once more.

'Blood?' She questioned dryly, ' Is there to be some form of ritual sacrifice, mehaps? Larsa shall 'ascend his manhood' by ingesting the still beating heart of some form of livestock?'

For just a moment a quiver of a smile quirked Balthier's lips, ' Yes, I know, it's all rather daft.' He conceded, before shaking his head pointedly.

'However that's not the point right this moment. I want to check the power conduits. Archades cuts corners everywhere. The lights are due to go out at the very moment Larsa ascends through the top of the volcano and the thing erupts in a shower of his glory. However the lights are connected to the Paling shield.'

Ashe widened her eyes in dawning comprehension, though she couldn't help but find the idea of Larsa popping out of the top of a volcano an extremely amusing prospect, she found herself being thankful once more that she had not been born Archadian. Gods only knew what the women were forced to do on turning fifteen.

However they had more pressing matters to attend to as she hurried along side Balthier down the steps leading to the under levels of the Palace.

'If the lights go out throughout the Palace and the lights are connected to the Paling, then you are saying that the Paling could fail around the Palace?' She queried.

The Paling was the final line of defence keeping everyone inside the Palace safe, a complex web of magic and security sensors that was the crown jewel in Archadian technology. It was astounding a people so good with science could be so careless with its implimentation.

Balthier shook his head in response to her last question. ' It isn't supposed to, but a mechanic with the right skills could easily get around the safety measures. I hadn't thought much about it until I saw those lights flickering, but really, it would be staggeringly easy.'

Ashe frowned. Perhaps it would be easy for Balthier, the man had dismantled a sky fortress while still inside it, after all, and was the progeny of the greatest (though undoubtedly insane) scientific genius Ivalice had known in the last century, but for her cousin? Joaquin had hardly impressed anyone with his planning nor his ingenuity thus far.

Although not aware of it she must have spoken at least some part of her misgivings out loud for, almost running down the dank, quiet corridors, Balthier turned to her, as they ran hand in hand, his eyes strangely dark.

'Madness breeds its own ingenuity, Highness.'

They reached the power generating room and found it unlocked. Stepping into the room, larger than it appeared but filled with consoles and power relays that reminded her, uncomfortably, of the inside of one of the Draklor labs, Ashe was relieved to find the room unoccupied.

Balthier immediately went towards the power generator, which even to Ashe's uneducated eye, looked wrong. A squat profusion of cables and crystals had been connected to the main power console which looked suspiciously hostile to Ashe.

Stepping further into the room after Balthier Ashe heard the unmistakable click-hiss of an activated magickal sigil and looked down on the floor to see the runic etching of magick blaze across the floor, in a white hot flash.

She spun around towards the door as something warped into the room between her and the doorway. Something gaseous and brilliant blue and with a simply fiendish grin.

'By the gods, where did that come from?'

Ashe hissed as she retrieved the danjango dagger from her thigh sheath. Balthier, who had been so absorbed in his examination of the power siphoning device to notice the trap closing in on them, looked over from the mesh of cables sprouting from the generator and swore emphatically.

Together they backed away from the new arrival until their backs hit the wall as the bulbous, bilious Balloon fiend floated like a blimp into the room towards them, huge, obscene grin spreading across its face, tiny hands waggling pointlessly.

Ashe had never seen a Balloon so large, it had to be seven feet in diameter and seemed to be shuddering in the air convulsively. The swirling vapours within its semi-solid outer shell stretched, expanded, growing larger and larger, the explosive, corrosive gaseous liquids inside its shell swirling faster, faster.

Ashe began the incantation for Shellga realising that there was no physical way they could dispatch the fiend before it self-destructed and took most of the equipment in the room with it.

Balthier's hoarse resounding curse and the weight of his body knocking her to the ground was the last thing she heard before the Balloon exploded in a liquid eruption of white hot gases and rubbery skin.


	17. Chapter 17

**The power generating room; Imperial Palace of ****Archades**

_A/N: Fasten your seats belts ladies and gentlemen this is going to be one __helluva__ roller coaster ride!_

_P.S: Cable __Fraga__, must admit didn't really get the Indiana Jones reference (I know I've seen the movies __but__ it was years ago and I can't remember them) but anyhow...yep, there's dress ripping-a-plenty coming up!_

* * *

Balthier stirred groggily. There was a heavy, constricting feeling in his chest that had become irritatingly familiar over the last five days. He forced his eyes open and shifted a little, trying to move his arm, which appeared to be pinned and had gone numb.

Ashe, head resting on his arm, reached up a somnambulant hand to cuff him across the face in complaint before snuggling into his body and winding her own arms about his neck, possessively.

Balthier almost let his eyes slip closed again. He was warm and lethargic and some part of his subconscious that welcomed whole heartedly the prospect of waking up beside Ashe tried to pull him back under the thick blanket of unconsciousness once more.

It was the astringent smell of burning metal and mechanical components that forced him back up into consciousness. The acrid scent of burning did not fit the comfortable relaxation of lying drowsily next to Ashe. Presented with a conundrum Balthier's brain roused itself to solve the puzzle.

'Oh bollocks!'

Heedless of Ashe's head smacking against the stone floor as he jerked his arm out from underneath her, Balthier surged upright and immediately threw an arm up over his mouth and nose.

The power generator room was full of thick, black, noxious smoke that burned his nostrils and roiled in his stomach, setting his head reeling. He could not see two foot in front of his nose and the only illumination came from the phosphorous spatters of sparks and the tendrils of flame that licked over fallen power consoles and machinery.

Swiftly Balthier hauled Ashe up by the shoulders and shook her awake. Affected by the fumes she took a while to flutter her eyelids open.

'...mhmm, Balthier...what?'

With a sinuous grace of movement he would have appreciated under almost any other circumstances, Ashe sleepily wound her arms back around his neck and tried to fall back to sleep with her head on his shoulder.

It was only when he tried to detach her from him and his hand brushed the sticky wet patch on the back of her head that he was able to fully explain her grogginess. His hand came away from her hair sticky with congealing blood.

'Damn.'

Balthier barely spared the breath to curse as he rooted about in his inner coat pocket for the spare Elixir Fran had forced on him earlier that evening (his partner not being convinced he was truly fit to be up and about; Balthier no more convinced than Fran had accepted the potion for that reason only.)

He was now grateful for Fran's foresight, as he coaxed Ashe to sip from the bottle and looked about him for any sign of an escape route.

The only reason they had not already suffocated from smoke inhalation was Ashe's magickal Shell shield. The thin, greenish glimmer of magick buzzed around them like a heat haze against the spark laden black abyss all around.

Ashe came to her senses and shoved the half empty Elixir bottle away. Taking the view of waste not, want not, and knowing that any escape would involve a great deal of physical stamina Balthier did not really think he had in him at the moment, he finished off the last of the potion.

'Sweet gods Balthier, the place is on fire!'

Ashe jumped to her feet, effectively popping the Shell shield. Balthier yanked her back down as she was almost immediately overcome by the fumes.

'Clearly Highness, you have not been in too many mechanical fires.'

He grated out hoarsely, beginning to strip off his jacket. It was hot in this rapidly spreading inferno and the material of the jacket would serve as a filter against the fumes, if the velvet was not too thick to breathe through.

Ashe watched him hold the jacket to his mouth and immediately fidgeted with purpose in her masses of shimmering silver and gold petticoats (no woman had ever looked more like an over-elaborate tea-cosy in the history of Ivalic fashion) in short order she produced from somewhere around her hip, a viciously sharp looking dagger.

'That is never going to work.' She scoffed dismissively at his jacket and began to slice up her dress with a certain amount of macabre glee.

In a very short time they both had rather fetching silvery damask masks to wear over the lower half of their faces, which made communication awkward but at least staved off smoke poisoning by a few precious seconds.

Moving with a certain controlled panic and synchronicity of purpose (there were emotional storm clouds on their personal horizon but both of them were adult enough to know that unless they worked together there would be no horizon to look too for either of them) Ashe took one side of the five foot wide expanse of empty space surrounded by burning debris and sparking wiring and Balthier the other.

After far too long a time had elapsed and while inching along the ground almost on his belly, Balthier felt a stirring of air and thrust his hand into a gap between two fallen power relay consoles that created a precariously balanced triangular archway.

In near pitch black darkness and their air almost run out, Balthier reached behind him until he caught a piece of the ridiculous train of Ashe's dress and tugged insistently to get her attention.

Once she had crawled over to him, tripping a few times on the excess fabric of her dress, Balthier guided her hand to the crawl space, before rather forcibly shoving her through it.

Balthier was by no means sure he could fit through the gap, but Ashe was certainly small enough and limber enough to do so and he thought that it was better that one of them, at least, have a chance at escape.

There was a series of slithering, whispering sounds as cloth of gold and silver scraped against rough stone flooring and debris as Ashe shoved her way through the litter of ruined equipment.

Balthier lay flat on his belly on the floor with his face towards the tiny whisper of clean air that came from the crawl space and waited for the fire, the heat of which he could feel like an invisible hand tickling against his calves, reached him or the foul, noxious gasses of burning components and power crystals choked him to death.

He could no longer hear Ashe shoving her way across the floor and he had a moment of acute guilt and panic that he had shoved her to her death, crushed under a mountain of unstable debris.

Then, at first as only a distorted echo lost in the cracks and pops of melting machinery, he thought he heard coughing and yelling.

'...Bal...' the rest of the sentence was obliterated by coughing, before she tried again.

'... Balthier...can you hear me?'

Balthier, reacting without thinking, opened his mouth and drew in a breath to answer her and almost ended up coughing his own lungs up through his oesophagus (having spent the last five days doing very similar as his punctured lung recovered, the sensation was at least familiar).

Thankfully the sounds of his choking must have carried to wherever Ashe was, because she called to him once more.

'A ventilation panel in the wall has come loose, the air here is easier to breathe.'

This statement was qualified by a sudden explosion of coughing from Ashe. _E__asier _being defined in the terms of breathing being possible but difficult, unlike where Balthier currently was, where breathing had become nigh near impossible unless one wanted a lungful of poisonous gas and sparks.

'There is space above the machinery. You can climb over the top and reach the ventilation shaft.' She yelled hoarsely.

Balthier, blinded by the heavy smoke, somewhat doubted her assertion. He was not sure he had the strength to do anything but lie on the ground and burn.

'Balthier?'

Ashe sounded decidedly anxious when he made neither a reply nor came clambering over the wreckage towards her.

Woozily realising that Ashe might crawl right back into the fire pit if he didn't make some form of response, even if it was only to tell her to climb over herself and get out before she died too, Balthier lifted his head.

'...can't see...where...climb?' Even in his current predicament he winced at his own inarticulate utterance. It was just as well he would soon be dead. He would never live such ineloquence down should any of his associates hear of it. Fran would be highly amused.

Somewhere behind the heavy veil of smoke all around him one of the fallen power consoles exploded in a rather pretty burst of pinkish-white flame, Seizing the advantage of momentary illumination Balthier craned his neck and looked about him.

For just a second before the flames sputtered out, swallowed in the inky darkness, Balthier saw a dull square of lighter grey shadow high in the corner of the wall to his far left.

'Balthier?' Ashe was screaming at him and possibly attempting to climb up the wreckage from the other side.

Gathering all the strength his not inconsiderable survival instincts bestowed on him, Balthier hauled himself to his feet and threw himself into the task of climbing the shifting, treacherous mountain of wreckage in the dark without handholds.

'...rope...need a rope...' He choked out as he realised he could not climb when he could not see, his eyes streaming from the smoke. He had no idea if he was even climbing the right pile of wreckage in the right direction.

'...I don't have a rope!' Ashe screamed back at him, actually contriving to sound irked by his demand.

'...find...something...else then!' Balthier could feel the flames dancing at his feet; the spot where he and Ashe had awoken now writhed in flames that licked over the stone floor like water.

Vaguely, over the crackle and pop of flames, Balthier thought he heard a soft continuous cursing and the sound of ripping cloth. A moment later a trail of cloth of silver, complete with seed pearl embroidered hem, smacked him in the face. He caught the 'rope' and used it to power himself up the wall of wreckage.

Reaching the top and coming to rest on the smooth surface of an ten foot high power control console tilted at precarious angle and resting jauntily against the wall below the ventilation shaft Balthier was able to draw in his first breath of air in over two minutes.

He looked down at Ashe and almost laughed aloud, except he didn't have the breath. Ashe stood in the heavily embroidered and jewel studied bodice of her dress with a heap of skirts in her hands, wearing nothing below the waist but her thin, flimsy underskirt and looking more than a little put out.

'Help me up.' She snapped tying one end of her butchered skirts around her waist and throwing the other end to him.

Balthier caught the end of the skirts and held them firm while Ashe walked herself up the other side of the wreckage.

The flames were licking the ceiling behind Balthier and beginning to dance across the exposed insulation fluff trailing like creeping ivy from the ceiling when Balthier, summoning some chivalry from deep within his soul, gestured to Ashe to proceed him into the ventilation shaft.

Not a huge admirer of small, tight, enclosed spaces, and suffering from smoke inhalation and general exhaustion from being one day out of a sick bed having been almost stabbed through the heart and then drowned, Balthier had no obvious reason for the smirk playing across his lips.

Except, of course, for the fact that the Queen of Dalmasca was crawling along the ventilation shaft ahead of him wearing a very tiny cotton shift and little else over her plumb, round derriere; Balthier may very well die here in this shaft but, considering his recent brushes with eternity, at least this time the view was a good one.

'There is a grating ahead and beyond that there is some form of store room.'

Ashe told him as she came to a halt after they had traipsed through the innards of the Imperial Palace's underground ventilation system for several interminable (but visually stimulating) minutes.

Balthier pulled the small, slim suede leather case of tools from inside his vest, where he always kept his emergency tools, and pinched the back of Ashe's calf to get her attention. She flinched and glowered back at him as best she could over her shoulder.

Wheezing like a bellows Balthier did not bother to speak and instead pushed the pouch into her hands. Ashe fumbled the pouch open awkwardly and looked blankly and incomprehensibly at the slim, extremely expensive, tools neatly arrayed within.

With a groan Balthier realised that Ashe was not Fran, it was doubtful she could even name the tools in his kit. Therefore Balthier inched himself forward, sliding to the side as much as possible and hoping Ashe would realise that he required her to start to inch backwards, so that he could reach the grating.

After giving him a very sceptical look as he ended up pressed against her body without a sliver of air between them, she finally did understand that (idle stray thoughts of moments before notwithstanding) Balthier did not have inappropriate amorous intent in mind and she wriggled backwards to give him room.

Thirty seconds later Balthier knocked the unscrewed grating out and neatly dropped the six foot to the ground before turning to help Ashe out of the shaft.

They were both lying, panting for breath, in a crumpled heap of dishevelled cloth of gold and silver (Ashe having kept hold of her tattered skirts for some unfathomable reason) conveniently hidden behind packing crates bearing the seal of Solidor, when two men entered the storeroom.

'Warp motes are working Marquis, we've started sending fiends into the grand hall. The Paling has activated just like you said trapping the Emperor and his guests in the hall.'

Joaquin Ondore, looking considerably more refined and infinitely _cleaner_ than the last time Balthier had seen him, strode into the room ahead of another Bhujerban man. Balthier immediately laid a restraining hand on Ashe who tensed like a Couerl ready to pounce. The last thing they needed was to alert the man to their presence.

'And my cousin?' Joaquin inquired coolly as he went towards the centre of the room and pulled open a trap door in the ceiling which lowered a ladder.

Ashe tried to pull free of Balthier and he covered her mouth with his other hand, straining all his senses to hear the conversation. They needed to know what Ondore was up to, as, clearly, they had severely underestimated not just the man's ingenuity and cunning but also his resources.

Captured fiends and warp motes, the device he had seen in the power generator room before it blew up, these were not easy to come by and spoke of both deep pockets and prior planning. Ashe's righteous desire for vengeance against her cousin would just have to wait.

Ashe, not appreciating being gagged, bit his fingers in warning. Balthier was too intrigued in the conversation between Ondore and his underling to notice.

'The pirate bastard took the bait, just like we thought. Saw the lights blinking and went poking about in the power generator room. Our agents in the hall saw the Lady Ashe follow him.'

Joaquin spun on the turban wearing man, lips curling in a wild snarl, 'She is _no _lady. She is a foul temptress and a vixen and Dalmasca is better off with her dead!'

Ashe twitched against Balthier's hold, almost trembling with suppressed rage and he knew that if it wasn't for his restraining arms on her she would have burst out from behind the crates and confronted her cousin, who was better armed and had not just escaped an explosion and blazing inferno, without a second thought.

Not for the first time, though the dry notion was tempered with affection, Balthier wondered how Ashe had managed to curtail her temper and her impulsiveness so as not to drag her country to rack and ruins in the last three years.

The Bhujerban man, responding to the ferocious, wild look in Ondore's eyes, took a hasty step backwards away from the deranged Marquis and raised his hands in a placating gesture.

'As you say Marquis Ondore, sir.' The man swallowed audibly before continuing with his report.

'Yami says that the generators blew just like we hoped. We knew the sigil had to have activated or the power cascade we needed to cause the Paling malfunction would not have happened.'

Jaoquin smiled, supremely self-satisfied. 'Yes, and to think if it wasn't for my dear cousin and her pirate paramour we could not have launched our attack.'

Balthier felt his scowl of concentration deepen as he processed the fallen Marquis' words. When he worked out what the man had to be so smug about Balthier's first thought was not exactly the response one might have expected.

He was impressed.

_Clever, bloody, bastard; _Balthier mused as he realised that the Marquis had deliberately set up a power siphon machine in the power generator room for him to find. Luring him away from the grand hall, into a trap that would not only kill he and Ashe (for anyone who knew Ashe would know she would follow him) but would also disable the power relays that kept the Paling functioning.

Had Balthier not had every reason to hate the man who had so very nearly killed him, he would have commended Ondore on his cunning. It was the sort of trick Balthier himself might have pulled off if he had been a deranged megalomaniac with paranoid delusions.

Said deranged megalomaniac was not finished congratulating himself and impugning Ashe's name, however, and Balthier returned his attention to the man and his ranting.

'Ashe should have severed the Solidor line and brought down the Empire when she had the chance aboard the Bahamut.'

Joaquin spat as he put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and prepared to start to climb, but before doing so he indulged in the time honoured tradition of all madmen with a delighted, maniacal laugh.

'I shall make sure that all Ivalice knows it was my cousin, the sainted Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca, who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of all of Archadia's most influential figures; a fitting epitaph for a power hungry Queen.'

Again it was only Balthier's arms holding her back that stopped Ashe from launching herself with considerable fury upon Ondore. He did not release her, even as her teeth sunk into the soft tissue of his hand, until both Ondore and his attentive underling had climbed up the ladder and closed the hatch behind them.

'You stupid bloody pirate, we could have stopped him!' Ashe exploded as soon as Balthier let go of her and they both stepped out from their hiding place.

Balthier, walking over to look up at the hatch thoughtfully, cast a baleful look over to Ashe. 'And how precisely would we do that, hmm? Attack your cousin with five yards of singed cloth and seed pearls?'

Ashe gave him a venomous look, through ferociously slitted frost hued eyes. She brandished a serrated dagger under his nose belligerently. 'I thought I might use _this_, actually, pirate.'

Balthier, looking down the length of the dagger at Ashe, was profoundly unimpressed. He batted the blade away and tapped his foot weighing up the pros and cons of following Ondore up the ladder and through the hatch. He had a fairly good idea where the hatch led, but could not know how many of Ondore's men might be waiting for them should they ascend.

'Your cousin's man would have shot you before you could take the first step, Highness. Or did you not notice the Arcturus strapped to his back?'

'I would not have been so obvious as to simply lunge at him.' Ashe sneered, insulted. Balthier however was no longer listening.

A thought had occurred to him. Ondore's man had said that the Paling was still active and had trapped Larsa and everyone else in the grand hall, along with a number of fiends, which explained the lack of any compatriots coming to rescue he and Ashe, Balthier thought wryly.

Balthier could imagine that tripping the Paling sensors in such a way could easily cause the exits to be blocked off with lasers and such like, but the only reason to do that was so that there would be no recourse for escape when (of course!)... the volcano erupted.

Balthier yanked on the cord to open the ceiling hatch and immediately the ladder whirred down on smoothly greased hinges.

'Oh so now you are following him.' Ashe ranted on.

'Now that the chance of doing something worth while, such as stopping my cousin, has quite passed.'

Balthier ignored her as he clambered up the ladder and momentarily considered shutting the hatch to keep her trapped below. The bite she had given his hand still hurt, after all. However, as Ashe was the only one of the pair of them even nominally armed, he thought better of it.

'Where are we?'

Ashe broke off her tirade against him and his conceited cowardice, or some such nonsense, to look about her at the cavernous, hollow construct they had emerged into and the large power core tower rising to high above their heads and glowing orange.

A rickety series of makeshift stairways and platforms twinned around the power core of the artificial volcano and it was on one of those platforms that Joaquin Ondore stood with a group of decidedly familiar (though for the moment Balthier could not think why) looking middle aged men.

It didn't take long for Joaquin's cohorts to discover their presence, 'Oy! You there, you en't s'posed to be 'ere!'

A heavy set man with the reddened skin of a life-long drinker and the charming accent of the Archades lower classes, moved with thudding gait towards them. His shout alerting the other, twenty or so, men, who were arrayed about the platforms and stairways around the power core.

Ashe exploded forward like a mortar shell from a cannon. Balthier did not have the time to do anything but watch as she launched herself at their discoverer, kneed him viciously in the groin and slammed an elbow into the back of his head before running on passed him.

Balthier, aware of the three other men advancing from the shadows towards him sighed in resignation and muttered caustically under his breath,

'Thank you so much _Princess_ for the loan of a dagger.'

As he was rolling up his soot smeared, blackened, cuffs in preparation for fisticuffs, though in truth he shouldn't have bothered, the shirt was beyond repair now, Balthier glanced at the power core and noticed something that shouldn't be there.

'Oh, bloody hell.'

He swallowed back the rest of the epithets that wanted to loose from his tongue as the first of the angry men advanced on him.

The man wore a pair of brass knuckles that sparked a vague memory in Balthier, as he tucked under the clumsy blow and attempted to make for the power core.

Balthier was struck a glancing blow to the chin that knocked him to his knees from a burly man with a military tattoo and the light of smug vengeance in his eyes. The man cracked his knuckles and grinned nastily down at Balthier as he shook the daylights back into place behind his eyes.

'Not so la-dee-dar 'appy wit' yersel' now are you Bunansa. Me an' the lads 'ave got a bone to pick wit' you.'

Balthier, wondering vaguely who in blue blazes these men were and troubled by the fact that they were strangely familiar, rolled out from the middle of the knot of grizzled men, all looking like long time soldiers and moving with the plodding stupidity of Imperial cannon fodder and made a dash for the power core and the rather nasty bomb he had seen attached to its base.

Balthier was momentarily distracted, as were his attackers, by a long drawn out scream from the platform two flights of rickety stairs above them. The Bhujerban man in the turban fell from the platform with a scream and landed on top of two of the men who had been so eager to beat Balthier to a pulp seconds earlier.

Looking up Balthier was just in time to see Ashe's face, a triumphant pale blur, poking over the railing of the platform at her handiwork and he raised a hand in sardonic salute for her intervention on his behalf, before she started up the stairs once more, ploughing through ex-Imperials and Bhujerban rebels like a one-woman army.

_Gods but I love that woman. _

The sight of Ashe knee-capping one dim-witted, ill-fortuned fool and stealing his sword so that she could insert it into the gut of the man's equally ill-starred compatriot might have disturbed any other man. Balthier, however, had not worked in partnership with Fran all these years only to fail to learn that a woman in a temper was the greatest danger to life and limb known in all Ivalice.

Returning to the immediate problem, the ticking bomb attached to the power core, which, if it detonated would go off with enough force to level the entire district, Balthier fished out his tools.

Thankfully he had not forgotten the man with the brass knuckles; the one man left standing after Ashe's intervention via falling Bhujerban. As he tucked under another meaty punch, memory finally supplied him with the man's identity.

Talbot. Talbot the discharged and malcontent ex-imperial soldier who had tried to incite the ramble in the tavern back room in Saraches against Larsa; Ondore had bought Talbot and his middle-aged in-grates into his plot. It was almost farcical.

Or at least it would be, if the man didn't keep throwing punches and kicks while Balthier was trying to diffuse a bomb that would quite likely kill them all in a matter of minutes. No wonder the man had been discharged from military service, his priorities were sorely lacking.

Talbot, grinning with yellowed teeth and distended jaw, so that he resembled a Silver Lobo with a particularly bad case of mange, managed to land a blow to Balthier's still tender lower back, right over the stab wound.

Balthier cried out and staggered against the power core, dropping his tools.

'Oh for the love of...' he snarled twisting to throw a well-aimed punch to Talbot's slathering jaw and following up with a swift upper cut ( Balthier may not have been raised to brawling but frequent trips to Balfonheim had taught him enough to make up for that).

'This, sir,' Balthier gritted out as he grabbed the man by the shoulders, struck him a blow to the forehead with his own head and kneed him viciously in the groin, 'is neither the time, nor the place...,' Balthier slammed his clasped fists down on the back of the man's neck as Talbot doubled up in pain, '...for petty grievances!'

Turning sharply on his heel and ignoring the burning pain in his chest and the sharp pain across his own forehead (the crack to the noggin he had landed Talbot had perhaps not been the best idea) Balthier disregarded Talbot's insensate body lying prone on the floor and retrieved his tools.

Above his head he could hear the cries of a heated fight. Sundry grunts and snarls from various male lackeys were a welcome sound, but the occasional sharp, almost birdlike cry, in a distinctly more feminine voice sent a shiver down Balthier's spine as he worked feverishly to diffuse the bomb.

Flashes of magick; fire, thunder, ice and water caught in the periphery of his vision as he pulled out wires and dug out crystal components.

'..._Joaquin!' _He heard Ashe's battle cry of pure, unadulterated rage and the clatter of her feet as she ran up the winding stairs towards her cousin, and an icy sweat that had nothing to do with exertion or exhaustion cascaded down Balthier's brow. His hands holding the tools trembled.

He had had no difficulty maintaining steady nerves aboard Bahamut, and truth be told this was not the first bomb he had ever diffused (he had also set a few in his time too, but such thoughts were not the sort of thing a soon to be married man should think too long on.) it was different now however.

For one thing, _Ashe_ had not been onboard Bahamut as the sky fortress fell, and equally, Balthier had never had to maintain his equilibrium while the woman he loved did battle with a well armed lunatic while equipped with little more than a dagger, her own inexhaustible righteous rage, and wearing naught but a blood stained shift.

He felt that under those circumstances he could be excused for a slight tremor to the hands and racing of the heart. Where was Fran when he needed her? Or for that matter bloody Judge Magister 'Gabranth'?

Losing patience Balthier began to tear out crystal components with his fingers, heedless of the sharp edges and buzzing power currents.

He had burned his hands terribly on Bahamut and would wear the scars until he died (in three minutes and counting down, whispered a snide voice in his mind) so a few more unsightly blemishes would not matter. He needed to get to Ashe; if only to see with his own eyes that she had not the slightest need of his assistance.

Balthier did not waste the mental effort, nor the energy on congratulating himself, as he finally tore out the last active part out of the bomb and began vaulting up the rickety stairs towards the very summit of the volcano, where an elevator mechanism had been constructed to take Larsa Solidor up through the top of the Volcano.

Balthier snatched up a rifle from one of the semi-conscious men moaning and groaning in great pain on the stairs as he raced towards the top.

'...you are a filthy, manipulative temptress, you do not deserve the acclaim Ivalice heaps upon you!'

He heard Joaquin's voice punctuated by the electric crackle of Thundaga. Although Balthier strained his hearing to the limit as he pounded up the steps, he did not hear Ashe reply.

Balthier firmly told himself that this was because Ashe did not waste breath on futile taunts while in battle; she simply killed anything that moved that wasn't unequivocally on her side. (More than once on their group sojourn three years ago Balthier had half suspected he might become the victim of this simple but undoubtedly effective philosophy.)

Lungs burning and head reeling from lack of air and utter exhaustion, Balthier rather inelegantly fell up the last few steps in time to see Ashe, resplendent in raw, primal fury, faithful Belias at her back, flailing a makeshift mace made out of cannon shot and cloth from her severed skirts to bludgeon her cousin into submission.

He was also in time to see the man, clambering over the railings of the platform, charge at Ashe from her exposed side.

Belias, ordered by his mistress to hold down Ondore in one of his four huge hands, would not be able to react quickly enough to stop the man's battle axe from cleaving Ashe's lovely head from her shoulders.

Ashe had time to spin, beautifully, on her heels, raise up her unique (and uniquely effective) weapon in a blocking manoeuvre that was already too slow, before the bullet from Balthier's pilfered rifle hit the man dead centre in the forehead.

Balthier had not even been consciously aware of sighting down the rifle, nor pulling the trigger until he had done so. This was, he thought vaguely, the second time he shot a man to save Ashe in less than a month. He sincerely hoped it would not become a habit, his nerves would not stand it.

Balthier struggled to his feet from his snipers pose, prostrate across the top step of the stairs, as Ashe spun on him, ready for another attack, then relaxed when she saw him, a smile touching her filthy, bloodstained face.

As Balthier wobbled to his feet, his legs shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion, his teeth aching from fatigue, he could only stare at the woman before him as if he had never truly seen her before.

Her heart shaped face was puffy and swollen on the right side, a vicious cut on her eyebrow bleeding into her swollen shut left eye. Bruises were already forming across her softly golden skin. Her hair was snarled and matted with blood, gore and singed from the earlier fire.

Scratches scored her arms, sleeves torn away so that only strips of golden cloth dangled from her tight fitted cuffs. There were cuts and bruises all over her lovely, shapely legs and the tattered shift was barely more than jagged frill hanging from the waist of her jewelled bodice.

She was without a shadow of a doubt the most beautiful, wondrous, creature he had ever laid eyes on.

Waving an offhandedly imperious command to Belias to hold onto the limp, but evidently still living body of her cousin, Ashe tottered towards him.

She limped noticeably and reached out for him as she stumbled, yet for all that her head remained held high and her one open grey eye clear and proud. Balthier knew, in that moment, that he was in the presence of the Dynast Queen and for the first time understood what that truly meant.

This was the woman who was destined to write her name all over the pages of Ivalice's history, and although he made no sign of it, the realisation affected him to the very marrow of his bones.

For all her power, the strength that blazed within her, the un-tempered steel of her will, she still thought she needed _him_

'I was beginning to think you had run off, pirate.'

Ashe murmured weakly, but with a faint whisper of her usual asperity as she leaned heavily against him.

Balthier could barely hold himself up, let alone the pair of them, but nothing would have made him show weakness now, not when she needed him to keep them both standing.

'I thought perhaps I would give you and your cousin some privacy to resolve your differences between yourselves.'

He demurred as suavely as he could, swallowing around rasping breathing and the rather unfortunate lump in his throat as he saw up close every one of the welts and cuts and bruises decorating her body. None of which Ashe herself paid any mind too.

Ashe did manage to stamp on his foot in reproof against his attempt at levity before she looked up at him quizzically.

'Why did you not follow?'

He smiled caustically down on her, 'I did not realise that was your command Highness and thought, instead, that perhaps I should dispose of the bomb your cousin left behind, before joining you up here.'

Ashe's eyes widened fractionally at the mention of a bomb and then they both turned to look on the bleeding, pulped mess that was Joaquin Ondore; as bad as Ashe looked it was clear that Joaquin had come out of the altercation between cousins decidedly the worst for it.

Balthier, surveying Ashe's handiwork with a suavely raised eyebrow, suppressed a wince at the sight of the compound fracture to the man's leg.

'He is still alive I see?' Balthier inquired dryly.

Ashe nodded as she leaned more comfortably back into his arms and rearranged said limbs to better suit her purposes. Balthier said nothing against this, not wanting to incur her wrath, as he looked on Jaoquin's oozing wounds.

'He must live. It is the best revenge and the greatest justice I can bring to bear for my uncle and for you.'

She turned her head so that she could see his face and he obliged her with a raised eyebrow. 'Oh? And how is that, for I assure you I should be just as happy to see your cousin dead.'

Ashe shook her head vigorously, 'No. He has to live to see that he was wrong. That I am not the base individual he thought me, that Larsa is a good and just Emperor and that Archadia can leave its past behind and become something better.'

She sighed wearily and Balthier reflexively tightened his arms around her, dropping a kiss to the top of her head in a quite uncharacteristic display of open concern and affection. He would blame it on exhaustion had he felt any desire to make excuses for himself, which, strangely, he didn't.

'I also want Joaquin to live so that he can see Bhujerba return to prosperity under the stewardship of her rightful Marquis, uncle Halim, and so that he can know how he wronged his father.'

'Hmmm, I see.' Balthier murmured thoughtfully, wondering how long Ashe had been harbouring thoughts of mercy towards her treacherous cousin.

'And, perhaps, Highness, you do not want to have your cousin's death on your conscience?' Balthier kissed the top of her head again when she flinched and he knew he had guessed right.

'It is not cowardice.' Ashe whispered defensively.

'No,' Balthier agreed quietly, his thoughts not truly on the fate of Joaquin but instead on the nature of cowardice. 'It is not, nor could any man accuse you, Ashe, of cowardice.'

There was for a moment a hesitant silence between them, punctuated only by the muffled thunder of Belias' breathing. Balthier heard the hitch in Ashe's breath as she prepared to speak and already knew what she would ask.

Acting on old habit he prepared to evade her, though he no longer knew why he did so.

Slowly he gently pulled Ashe away from his body and turned her about so he could look on her, they and Belias were already on the elevator platform, all he had to do was activate it.

With a crooked smile he nodded to the mechanism, 'Are you ready to ascend to your manhood, Highness?'

Without missing a beat, Ashe cocked her head and gave him a shrewd, combative look, 'Are _you_, pirate?'

'Yes.'

He said, and he wasn't answering that question but the other one; the one that he should have answered that sunny morning in Bhujerba. He was ashamed (a feeling he was usually blithely immune to) that he had kept forcing her to ask a question she should not have had to ask even once.

He activated the elevator and with a jolt the platform began to rise and the roof of the volcano opened like the cross-hatched opening of an aerodrome hangar.

He looked Ashe dead in the eyes (or the one eye, the other still painfully squeezed close. Balthier made a mental note to get her to a healer as soon as Joaquin was safely locked away.)

It was time to be honest, truly honest, and Balthier would be the first to admit he wasn't overly good at honesty, but Ashe was waiting and he had made her wait too long already. He took a breath and, like a man preparing for the long drop at the end of a noose, he said what needed to be said.

'I could not love you more, _my __Queen_, if my life depended on it.' And now, Balthier thought dryly, for the truly hard part. 'I'm sorry, Ashe.'

Ashe smiled at him and it was beautiful even with a swollen lip and a black eye, because it was her.

'I'm not, and I don't think I'll ever have reason to be either.'

She wound her arms around his neck and rose on tip-toe as he lowered his face to hers, arms holding her lightly as the platform ascended the top of the volcano amid harmless sparks and puffs of white smoke.

Balthier raised his hands from her waist to rest, feather light, against her cheeks. One thumb gently stroked her bruised cheekbone, as, from some deep reservoir of love and compassion inside his soul, he found the soft healing Magick to soothe her hurts. He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with more reverence than he ever had before.

Balthier was still kissing her, ever so gently, almost chastely, when the platform came to a stop atop the volcano.

That was how they returned to the grand hall, how they appeared before the eyes of every man and woman present therein. Two people locked in the sweetest of embraces amid golden trails of sparks and wisps of smoke, the soft haze of healing magick enshrouding them both and the silent, restful presence of Belias towering placidly by.

As far as dramatic entrances went, Balthier would always say here after, it was this one that ever after stood his favourite; because he made his entrance with the woman he loved.

* * *

A/N: Phew, I'm exhausted! But wait...is that wedding bells I'm hearing? ;) 


	18. Chapter 18

** Epilogue: Somewhere that is everywhere and nowhere**

Ashe woke up and swept the mosquito netting away from her bed. A strange soft, diffuse white light glowed from her balcony window the gauzy curtails billowing in a breeze she could not feel.

Frowning Ashe stepped out of bed and padded cautiously out onto her balcony, except it wasn't her balcony. As she stepped out onto the creeper trailed marble balcony the construct seemed to stretch and extend high across a formless, white expanse; a thin protrusion jutting out into nothingness.

Ashe whipped her head around to dash back to the safety of her room in the Palace only for her heart to contract in an agony of shock and desperate joy when her eyes lit on the man seated so far away by her balcony window.

'_Daddy!' _

The childish utterance escaped her as she ran, heedless of the narrowness of the marble bridge or the empty glowing whiteness below her, and reached out her arms for her father, King Raminas. She could see with absolute clarity the smile on his weathered, age creased face.

As she ran but never seemed to make any ground the Palace fell away and she saw her father sitting upon his throne, her mother standing by his side, one hand resting on his shoulder and her brothers, her lost, dead brothers, some who had died before she had even been born, forming a unified line behind her father's throne.

She threw herself forward fighting against an invisible weight of air and stillness that kept her from the family she had loved and lost, but no matter how hard she pushed she could make no head way. Her family remained ever distant and unreachable.

Yet despite this she could so clearly see every wrinkle on her father's lean, white bearded face. She could see her mother's dark secretively amused Bhujerban eyes dancing with a light and a vibrancy that they had owned in life. She could hear two of her brothers' laugh at something Nemoi said; Nemoi who had died when she was eight and she had wept for him and refused to eat for days after.

She could not reach them but, suddenly, after so many years they were with her again. Nuances of their speech, their mannerisms and body language that she had forgotten or distorted in her own memory flooded back to her.

She cried out her brothers' names, called and waved and threw herself against the invisible, formless barrier she could not breach to reach her family. She screamed out to her mother and her father with lungs aflame, caught in an apoplexy of joy and exquisite pain; so near and yet so far.

A movement in the periphery of her vision attracted her and she spun, ready to defend herself, only to stagger back a step when she saw the man who walked across the air, trailing wisps of soft, white mist from the slightly rusted, dented and well worn joins of his armour.

'…._Vossler..!' _Her heart constricted with a wild, thunderous abandon as her former knight protector, the man who had snatched her from the Palace on the night her father died and transformed the green and frightened Princess into the warrior she was today.

The man who had also not trusted her enough to lead Dalmasca to freedom and had betrayed her and himself aboard the Shiva only to die in flame and ignominy.

She stared in mute desperation as he reached the ledge she stood upon. Her eyes feasted on every remembered facet of his appearance; his wild, wiry dark hair, the wash-board like armour plating across his chest, the slightly cynical but determined light in his eyes.

'Majesty.' His voice. His gruff, blunt manner of speech; so different from Basch for was also a man of few words. So familiar, so very sorely missed.

Ashe reached out a shaking hand to touch him and found her own hand momentarily clasped in a large, sword calloused hand that was so warm and solid it felt more real than anything she had ever felt before.

Ashe twisted back to where her family still waited, their smiles, their love and warmth reaching her like the rays of the sun even if she could not reach them.

'Vossler I cannot reach my father, what is this place and how may I breach the barrier preventing me from…'

She began in a rush. It did not matter now, and had not truly mattered when she had watched the Shiva obliterated in the sky above Rabanastre, that he had betrayed her. She was not even sure she could define it as betrayal.

She would never agree with his reasoning but she could not doubt Vossler had truly believed he acted for the best, and she had always believed that a Knight of Dalmasca should ever do his best.

Vossler spoke, interrupting her, 'You do not need to go back Majesty. There is no reason to.'

Ashe felt her eyes grow wide with a mixture of shock and indignation, she glanced swiftly back to her waiting family and then to Vossler, feeling her anger rise.

'But…'

Vossler looked briefly back to King Raminas and the rest of the lost line of Dalmasca. It seemed to Ashe for a moment as if he smiled; such an uncharacteristic gesture. He turned back to her.

'Majesty it is not for the living to look always to the dead. Your family remain at your back; at rest in your heart and vibrant in memory forming the fabric of your soul. You have no need to look back to know they stand always behind you; the foundation with which to build a life anew.'

Ashe swallowed down fresh tears and struggled to formulate a reply as Vossler turned with a grind of metallic armour and worn, treated leathers. Ashe trailed after him just as she had as a girl desperate to learn what it meant to survive to fight another day.

'Come Majesty, look upon Dalmasca; set your sights upon _this_ horizon.'

Vossler stood by the precipice at the edge of the elongated white spit of marble ground that hovered over the white mist and Ashe straightened her spine and walked proudly up to the edge, quelling any fear.

'But…' Ashe gasped as the mist cleared and her city, glittering under a beautiful cerulean sky, spread out beneath her. 'This is not Rabanastre!'

And it was not. The city she saw beneath her was too large to be Rabanastre. This city rolled out beyond the ancient walls of the city she knew and sprouted new growth like shoots of grass in the desert.

She looked to the slumbering wreckage of the Bahamut and the oasis that it had spawned and gasped to see the wreckage towering with a certain benevolent solidity over a thriving small town; a profusion of squat white houses and crowded streets sitting just outside Rabanastre's city limits.

Ashe turned her head and saw that she could look all around her and nowhere was the view familiar, despite the readily familiar landmarks and surroundings.

The Estersand was crisscrossed with a system of roadways cut through the gritty sands and filled with a stream of caravans heading towards Rabanastre.

The Giza plains were equally different, she saw as if distance was no object, as if she were flying above the golden, undulating sands instead of standing motionless on the edge of a precipice, the Nomad children laughing and playing in the shadow of the dark black crystals dotting the plains.

'What are those?' Ashe whispered more to herself than to Vossler as she peered down upon the Westersand and saw a herd of something, a vast number of somethings, that moved like glimmering iridescent tumble weeds with spindly black legs.

The multi-coloured glowing herd were being corralled and directed by men riding chococbo's with domesticated wolves running at their feet. She watched the extraordinary procession move like a shimmering shoal of fish across the sands.

'…..Sheep….those are sheep!'

She gasped finally recognising the strange creatures that were most definitely not native to Dalmasca. She realised that they were not merely sheep, but the magickal _Atholl_ sheep, whose fleeces could, in some markets, bring a kings ransom in Gil.

Ashe whirled on Vossler who had been waiting for her to see her fill patiently all this time, leaning upon his massive sword.

'This is not my Rabanastre! This is not my Dalmasca!' She cried.

Someone laughed gently behind her back and Ashe thought for a frozen moment that her heart would simply fail her completely, almost reluctantly she turned slowly to face him.

'Rasler.' She whispered as she looked on the pale haired young man in his Nabradian armour who smiled gently at her with a sweetness that pierced her heart.

'Of course this is your Dalmasca, Ashelia.' He corrected her gesturing for her to come and stand beside by the restored balcony rail.

She stumbled on shaking legs over to the rail and gripped the shockingly solid cool marble as a life line. Rasler gestured outwards to the strange Rabanastre that was not her Rabanastre and yet was still the city she knew and loved.

'This is the Rabanastre you will build, Ashelia, this is truly _your_ kingdom. The Dalmasca that will rise as her Queen rises and waits beyond the new horizon you foresaw as the Bahamut fell. This is your horizon my dearest.'

On her other side she felt Vossler come and stand by the railing but she could not tear her tearing eyes from Rasler, in a fumbling haste she placed her hand upon his and gasped to feel the warmth of his fine, soft skin.

'Rasler….I….' She did not know what to say.

Once upon a time she had longed to hear him speak, to be here on her balcony with him once more and some part of her that knew that all this was merely a dream, raged that she would never have the opportunity to build this marvellous new Rabanastre with her prince.

However that was an old pain, a wound that would always twinge and never fully heal, but one that no longer wept hearts blood with her every breath; her eyes sought out the herd of Atholl sheep grassing on the grasses that she did not remember being present in the Westersand of her waking hours.

This Rabanastre was not the city she and Rasler would build. This was the city she and _Balthier_ would raise from the solid, proud foundations her father and men like Vossler had died to uphold.

Painfully she met Rasler's eyes and saw nothing but a quiet content and understanding.

'Had things been different I have no doubt we would have raised a magnificent kingdom, my dearest.' He said with a smile.

'As they are now I know that Nabradia is in good hands, in you my family and my kingdom will live on.'

And then he stepped back from the railing and let her look upon a different horizon, one she should not have been able to see, if not for a rippling of dream reality that shrank the distance of the miles to nothing and allowed her to without limits.

She saw Nabradia and her visceral gasp was a cry of shock and something too fierce, too desperate, to be simply defined as joy. The plains of Nabradia lived.

She saw roads cut through land that was still swampy and swathed in a thin skein of Mist, but which thronged with traffic; carts and caravans and armoured vehicles filled with building supplies. The road traffic all wound along to the edge of the horizon and she saw the citadel of Nabradia, supported in scaffolding, as it rose from the dead.

As she watched, clutching Rasler's hand in a death grip, she saw that a littering of tents and huts sprouted like mushrooms from the reclaimed ground of the Nableus plains. Dykes and ditches for irrigation were being dug by an assortment of workers of all races. The land was no longer shrouded in choking Mist and haunted by banshee wailing spectres.

Ashe turned around laughing through tears towards Rasler and Vossler only to find them both far, far away from her, standing with the silent loving line of her father and her family.

Ashe herself stood upon a floating platform of marble that resembled her balcony and was separated from the floating cloud where her lost ones gathered; she knew what this foretold, that they would soon be gone.

'Don't leave me.' She whispered then she moved swiftly to the edge of the solid ground she stood on and came to a jerky halt, reaching out to those who had already departed life and now made to depart her dreams as well.

'Please Rasler…, 'She choked, silently raging at the lack of words invented to explain and express all she wished to impart to him and turned towards her erstwhile protector instead.

'Vossler…..I am sorry. I am sorry I was not strong enough for you to depend on...I…'

Vossler stopped and Rasler did as well. Her Prince nodded to Vossler and smiled before turning and disappearing into the mists of her memory. Vossler stepped briefly towards her and nodded.

'The fault was mine. You have surpassed all my own and Dalmasca's greatest expectations. Know Ashelia, Majesty, that it was always an honour to serve you.'

'Vossler.' She tried to forestall his inevitable leaving and instead heard, clear and precise as the bells of the cathedral, her father's voice.

'Awake, Ashe, my child. The horizon waits.'

Ashe had one last confused impression of the wonders of the imaginary Rabanastre and the soft all-encompassing warmth of her family's love, Rasler's smile and Vossler's sheer presence, and then she awoke with a start in her own bed.

Jolting awake with a certain disorientation Ashe shot upright and looked about her as the rose tinted dawn light crept in through the balcony window.

A strange sound coming from outside piqued Ashe's curiosity and she padded over to the balcony, kicking discarded bed sheets out of the way lest she trip.

Ashe stepped out onto her balcony with the wisps of her vibrant, wondrous dream still clinging to her mind so that she almost expected to see the sprawling, thriving city of her imaginings rolling out beneath her.

What she saw instead jolted her to the marrow of her being as for a moment she thought that she did still dream.

_Sheep!_

There were golden, glimmering magickal sheep everywhere. Her own court yard was filled with the round, woolly creatures on their spindly black legs, bleating fussily as they ate their way through her private gardens.

Beyond the Palace grounds she could see sheep in the Muthru bazaar bleating and tethered with pretty silver cords to Moogling posts and signs as Rabanastrans, many of whom would never have seen such creatures, stumbled out of their homes in their nightclothes to gather around and point and stare and exclaim over the incongruence sight.

There were sheep in the fountains at the south gate and loitering outside the aerodrome, there were sheep milling just outside the city walls being guarded by strange men on weather worn Chocobo's, their domesticated wolves lying at their feet.

As Ashe watched her Palace guardsmen slowly approach the sheep in her gardens, not sure whether the fluffy balls of valuable wool represented a threat, the door to her chamber burst open and Penelo flew in waving a sheaf of papers and still dressed in her night shift.

'It came. It came! The dispensation came!' Penelo gasped, pink cheeked and brilliant with joy.

It took all Ashe's self control not to snatch the papers from Penelo. She skimmed the written words and let her eyes linger on the waxy seal of the Gran Kiltias, the seal of ascent for marriage.

Ashe opened her mouth, though she wasn't sure what she intended to say when, abruptly, from the direction of her audience chamber (the room in her private quarters where she received her informal guests) a loud and somehow irritable bleating could be heard.

'Bleeahhhh. Bleahhhhgh.'

Ashe and Penelo exchanged a look and then went together to open the door to the chamber together.

'Oh!' Penelo leapt backwards as an Atholl sheep, a silver bow tied around its neck, and clearly irritated by the fact, burst through the door and into Ashe's bedroom.

Ashe watched the creature as it stopped by her bed and began aggressively chewing on the hangings around her bed, still bleating as if carrying on some form of argument.

'Bleeaaahhhh. Bleaaaahhhhhgggg.'

Ashe noticed the velvet pouch hanging from the silver bow and carefully approached the creature, which had golden curling horns and stood about four feet tall.

Deftly she pulled the pouch away from the creature and pulled out the folded papers inside. A note fluttered to the ground which she swiftly caught up in her hand.

_Highness, I have been informed that the dispensation has come through, therefore I shall meet you in the Cathedral for a special morning service. Do not be late for I intend to only do __this__ the once. _

_P.S. please find enclosed all the necessary paperwork. _

_P.P.S: the shoe is on the other foot this time, is it not, Highness?_

The note was not signed but she knew the appalling handwriting well enough (and somewhat doubted this was another forgery of Vaan's) with a raised eyebrow Ashe looked over the rest of the 'paperwork' and blinked in surprise.

A marriage contract signed by a _B.F.M Bunansa _and awaiting the signature of one Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca and a deed of sale for one thousand Atholl sheep to the treasury of the kingdom of Dalmasca-Nabradia also signed with a certain extravagance by _B.F.M Bunansa. _

Ashe glanced back at the handwritten note as the pieces fell together, _the shoe is on the other foot _indeed!

Ashe swore passionately and Penelo, who had been watching Vaan attempting to wrangle sheep below the balcony with one eye and watching the sheep by Ashe's bed with the other, jumped.

'That bastard pirate!'

Ashe exclaimed staring at the clock on her wall. Morning service was less than three hours away. How was she supposed to prepare for a wedding in three hours!

As she rushed towards her walk in closet, being followed by the curious sheep, who had managed to tear the netting from her bed and was chewing on it while bleating cheerfully, Ashe realised that she had in fact been waiting for this day for the last eleven months.

It had been exactly eleven months since Larsa's eventful coming of age ceremony. A year since her cousin Joaquin's capture and the ensuing months had been taken up (along side the dull minutiae of ruling a country with a slowly recovering economy) with trying to iron out the political complications of a proposed marriage to a non-royal, ex-sky pirate Archadian aristocrat.

In the end, her patience in tatters, she had appealed to the Gran Kiltias Marana herself to interpose her will on the argumentative Rozzarian Empress who took Ashe's rejection of one of her sons as tantamount to an act of war and the stubborn Archadian Senate who did not want to see the Atholl income seceded to Dalmasca.

It seemed that Balthier's solemn pledge, before the combined ranks of her own privy council and the Gran Kiltias, that his intentions were true and not motivated by a desire for the Dalmascan throne, had finally made the difference.

Ashe smiled faintly and conceded, as she flung clothing from her closet in her haste to find suitable last minute attire for an impromptu wedding, that it had been quite a speech Balthier had made within the cloisters of the temple of Mount Bur-Omisace.

Quiet and simple and without his usual theatrics it had only been then that she had truly believed that Balthier was as irritated by the delays as she; that he was as committed to this union as she. He would never have agreed to a pledge made to the Gran Kiltias if he wasn't serious.

Of course, she thought dryly, flooding her kingdom with a thousand sheep and demanding she marry him on his schedule rather swiftly redressed the balances however; clearly Balthier could only manage sincerity and earnestness in small doses before his peculiar sense of humour came into play.

'Gods! Today! He wants to marry you today!'

Penelo had finally finished reading through the note and the papers and turned on the sheep, which had started to eat Ashe's discarded clothes as she continued to root through her clothing for the only outfit she could possibly wear for this wedding.

'Shoo, shoo, out!'

Penelo had a great deal more success chasing the sheep back out into the hallway outside Ashe's bedroom door than her guardsman were having dispersing the sheep in the gardens and her chief lady in waiting swiftly came to help Ashe dig out her metal greaves, her white high collared jacket and her red skirt.

'I'll fetch the other women, you have a bath.' Penelo ordered her Queen as she rushed out of the doorway leaving Ashe with little respite but to do as told.

Sometime later with less than two hours before morning service Vaan and the other guardsmen had managed to create a makeshift pen for the sheep in the palace forecourts and the other sheep had been returned to the shepherds of Atholl.

Said shepherds proved to be rather polite gentlemen who lingered just outside the city walls, having been invited to the city by the Lord of Atholl, Master Bunansa, and commanded to release the sheep into the city under cover of darkness, though they had some misgivings over their lord's commands and apologised to her Secretary of Affairs profusely for any damage the herd had caused.

Vaan, who had the look of one who knew more about these events than he was willing to admit (the Captain of the Queen's guard would have to be a willing participant in these nocturnal sheep antics after all) arrived at the door to the Queen's chambers, which had swiftly filled to bursting with frantic, excitable women, to inform Ashe that her guests had started arriving and would be escorted to the Cathedral.

This was news to Ashe who had not known she was expecting any guests. She called Vaan into her presence and her Knight reluctantly entered the den of women in the midst of womanly things such as hairdressing and bouquet making, to approach his Queen.

'What guests?' She asked as mildly as she could as one of her ladies fluttered about her head cutting her hair.

'Umm, well, Al-Cid, some of Al-Cid's brothers, your Uncle Halim, Larsa, War Chief Supinelu from the Garif, a whole bunch of Kiltia from Mount Bur-Omisace. Basch.' He shrugged awkwardly. 'You know, everyone.'

Ashe blinked wondering how in all Ivalice Balthier had managed to get all the leaders of Ivalice together for a wedding she had only known about for an hour and a half, and she was the gods damned _Bride. _

Then she frowned, 'War chief Supinelu?'

Vaan nodded, 'He's come with some of the other Garif warriors. Balthier invited him, said something about Ozmone being the perfect place for the sheep to graze and the Garif making natural herders.'

Ashe considered this; then considered what violent fate she would inflict upon the conniving, controlling and manipulative pirate when she laid eyes on him, before deciding that such matters could wait until after the service and the ink was dried on the marriage contracts.

'I see.' She said slowly.

Then shook her head to clear it; it was high time she take back some control in these matters, 'Very well. Vaan, please could you bring Judge Magister Gabranth to my chambers as soon as possible.'

Vaan looked like he might have liked to question her but, as Penelo was noisily rapping out orders to the other ladies-in-waiting in the background, Vaan swallowed down his usual curiosity in favour of a hasty exit.

With some twenty-five minutes until morning service Ashe surveyed the results of Penelo and her other ladies feverish labours with some pleasure, standing before her mirror, as a knock on the door heralded the arrival of Judge Magister Gabranth in full Magisterial armour.

Ashe turned to face him as the bells of the cathedral rang out to call the faithful and the curious to the service. Ashe could hear city criers running through her streets declaring the nuptials with the aid of cow bells and the continuous, strangely comforting, bleating of sheep in the background.

Ashe smiled as Basch made his way awkwardly through the litter of wedding preparations scattered hither and thither all over her quarters. A number of her ladies looked less than pleased to see an Imperial in the Queen's presence (which was rather amusing for a number of reasons, namely Basch was not an Archadian, secondly, Balthier, who most certainly _was_, had managed to thoroughly charm each of her ladies within ten minutes of making their acquaintance.)

Ashe rather deliberately didn't dismiss her ladies who gathered in a curious, slightly hostile, gaggle in the far corner of the room all except for Penelo who hovered a little closer clearly wondering what Ashe was up to.

'Your Majesty, Lady Ashelia, you summoned me?'

A Judge Magister of Archadia would not traditionally bow to her but Basch did and it made her smile. It also struck Ashe how very like his brother Basch sounded when his own less guttural tones were distorted by his helmet's metal visor and voice grate.

'Yes, sir, I did.' She smoothed her hands down her white jacket bodice a little nervously wondering if she truly dared do what she had planned. She bit her lip.

'I find myself in need of a strong and loyal escort to the cathedral, sir.'

Her voice cracked slightly and she wondered what his eyes portrayed behind his full helmet, was he remembering that it was _he _that had walked her out of the cathedral to the waiting carriage that she and Rasler rode up to the cathedral all those years ago?

There were gasps from her ladies as the meaning of her words permeated through the room. Penelo eased a step closer, her hands clasped together before her and a tremulous smile on her face, she met Ashe's eyes and nodded, understanding what Ashe was planning to do.

It was time; her own dream had told her that the living should live and the dead should rest.

Before Basch could react and rise to his feet, having knelt at her feet, she caught hold of his helmet and wrenched it off.

'Arise Sir Basch, Dalmasca has missed you.'

Ashe declared breathless with her own daring. The stunned silence lasted only a moment before one of her ladies passed out in shock as the announced dead (but completely exonerated of any regicide by Ashe herself) former Knight of Dalmasca leapt to his feet face flushed with a mixture of shock, heat, and mild panic.

'My Lady this is….' Basch could not formulate words as Ashe, casting one last speculative glance at her reflection in the mirror, grasped his metal plated arm firmly and swept up the Sword of Kings taking the time to make sure her sword belt hung correctly.

Ashe could not bring herself to wear white as she had for Rasler (and nor did she have a wedding gown prepared) therefore, and somehow this felt more appropriate than any gown, she would wear the battle gear she had worn when she met Balthier, over four years ago in the sewers, her sword at her hip.

Basch was still floundering in shock and Ashe could not resist an almost impish giggle before she raised one eyebrow in a very good approximation of the suave disregard for social mores she had seen her imminently soon to be husband affect many times before as she addressed her former Knight.

'Basch I am to marry a sky pirate with a flagrant disregard for authority, I cannot think of anything more appropriate than to walk into the cathedral on the arm of a dead man.'

Basch was blushing and still dragging his heels as Ashe started for the door. Penelo, shooing the other ladies into line behind their Queen, stepped up and took Basch's other arm.

'She's right Basch, it's been four years, its time you lived life as yourself. Larsa won't mind. He told me himself that it's silly you still pretend to be Gabranth when everyone in Archades knows you aren't.'

'…..I…?' Basch stuttered, before giving up and marching with full pomp and circumstance down the winding stair and out of the palace with Ashe on his arm.

'Oh, look, look at that!'

Penelo, who had leapt in front as leading lady in waiting to proceed her queen to the alter, stopped and gaped at what was waiting for them along the processional walk between the palace courtyard and the entrance to the cathedral.

_Sheep._

One thousand sheep in serried rows either side of the grand promenade, tethered together with silver and green cloth, the traditional colours of marriage in Dalmasca, bleating a cacophony of greeting. Ashe had seen many strange and wondrous sights in her short life but this surpassed them all.

Behind the sheep and in some cases beside the sheep or riding on the sheep, Rabanastrans thronged the promenade and shouted from the rooftops.

It may have been short notice but the people of the city would go to great lengths to take part in any form of spectacle. Ashe wondered dryly if even half the people present realised she was about to be married, or even if it truly mattered?

Ashe, on Basch's arm, her ladies and waiting and Penelo entered the cathedral fighting fits of laughter having strolled with regal nonchalance through the columns of sheep up to the great steps of the cathedral.

Ashe did not feel the least like laughing however when she arrived at the entrance to the cathedral great hall and the entire congregation, the cathedral packed to the rafters, rose to their feet on seeing her.

For the first time in her life Ashe did not even notice the attention of the people packing the pews. Instead her eyes went immediately to the tall, elegantly lean man standing in front of the alter where the Dalmascan High Cleric, who had once married she and Rasler, waited.

Ashe faltered on the threshold of the long walk up towards the alter in a way she never had when she married for the first time for duty and country. Basch squeezed her hand as it rested cold as ice on his arm.

All the way up the aisle Ashe kept her eyes on _him_. It barely registered that he had come to the same sartorial decision that she had and was dressed simply in the golden embroidered vest, pristine white shirt, and tight black trousers he had worn when she first met him. All she could really focus on was the fact that he was there at all.

She passed Al-Cid and his birds, the Rozzarian lowered his glasses to give her a wink as she passed. She passed Larsa, grown in the last year by almost a head and no longer looking like a child, she saw his blue eyes twinkle with both understanding and approval to see Basch unmasked and himself once more.

She passed Vaan who stood just below the raised dais of the alter in full Knight's regalia and grinning like a boy, as Penelo came to stop by his side and Basch let go of her arm to stand beside Fran (who, standing unobtrusively behind her partner had made a concession to the occasion by threading a Galbana lily through her hair.)

As Ashe took her place beside Balthier there were any number of things she could have said to him, or shouted, or cursed. What she ended up saying was not what she might have expected to say.

She gave him a pointed, dry look, '_Sheep_, Pirate? You send word of our nuptials via sheep?'

Balthier's lips twitched into a smirk though he attempted (not overly successfully) to feign innocence, 'Was it a little too much?'

Ashe bit the inside of her lip as the congregation returned to their seats in the pews, 'It was certainly novel. I imagine half Rabanastre's population have seen a sheep for the first time this day.' She retorted ironically.

'Ah, well then,' Balthier chuckled softly and in relaxed fashion, 'my objective is accomplished. I had hoped to make this day memorable for all involved. We have waited long enough for it in any regards.' He added slightly irked.

Ashe did not bother to repress her smile, 'Yes, we have indeed waited too long for this moment.' She murmured as the High Cleric began the service.

Ashe heard very little of the Cleric's words, she had paid more mind to them the first time afraid to get her part in the drama wrong and embarrass her father and Rasler; now it no longer mattered. It was all merely pageantry to entertain their guests. The only thing that mattered was that he said yes.

When they stepped out into the light of day in front of the cathedral doors and were staggered to a stop by the almost physical power of the thunderous raw and applause of what seemed to be the entire population of Dalmasca mingled with the confused and slightly panicked bleatings of a thousand sheep, Ashe thought for just a moment that dream and reality merged before her swimming eyes.

She squeezed Balthier's hand tightly in hers and looked out over a faultless sky that glowed down upon her in a heart rending shade of blue to dazzle her eyes.

'Do you see it?' She whispered haltingly to the man who was now her husband.

She pointed with her free hand towards the sky, beyond the buildings all around her, outward as far as the eye could see and the mind could imagine.

'Can you see that horizon?'

She whispered fervently as in her minds eye Rabanastre grew in prosperity and stretched outward to tame the deserts beyond. She had a glimpse for a moment of Nabudis as she had dreamed it and felt that everything she had seen in that dream was truly within her grasp, in this one shining moment of triumph long awaited.

Balthier leaned down so he could kiss her cheek, before whispering in her ear, 'Not any mere horizon, Highness, that is _our_ horizon and I have never seen one more beautiful.'

All around her people cheered, flowers and confetti scattered and danced in a cooling breeze blowing down from Nalbina. Ashe saw in that one beautiful, wondrous moment, Penelo sniffling and the Emperor of Archades reaching out to squeeze her hand, only for the shop girl from Migelo's Sundries to squeeze his hand back.

She saw the wise and placid Viera smile with a look at once that of a friend revelling in a dear one's happiness and a mother watching a child grow up. She saw a good man newly resurrected to live his life unmasked stand proudly by Fran's side and a Rozzarian free spirit lounge comfortably against the pillars of the cathedral, his faithful birds flocked about him.

Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca looked on the present she had fought and bled for, and stretched her thoughts towards a future she had dreamed of, and knew that it was good and pure; that it was incontrovertibly a new horizon and a new beginning.

She turned to grasp more tightly Balthier's hand and looked up to see him smiling with an expression devoid of either cynicism or fatuous amusement but instead his eyes were fixed on the horizon as if he too could see what she had seen.

He caught her looking and smiled down on her, gesturing with a nod towards the throngs of Rabanastrans and beyond them to the horizon waiting to be claimed, before he bowed to her gracefully.

'Shall we?' He asked though the answer was never in doubt. She nodded, smiling, and hand in hand they descended the steps to start a new story together.

* * *

_A/N: I would like to take this opportunity to thank, sincerely, everyone who has read, enjoyed and reviewed this story and its predecessor. All of you helped create this story arc and truly it would not have been written without your interest!_

_I would also like to add for the eagle eyed among you who have mentioned in reviews various devious little plot bunnies flung into the mix these last few chapters (Cid and Nabradia particularly) that this is not the intended end for this story arc. _

_I have yet to decide if I'm going to revisit the world of 'Conversations' in little one shots periodically or if I have another full length story left in me, but for anyone who has enjoyed reading this story and its predecessor 'Conversation and Negotiations' as much as I have enjoyed writing them I can promise there will be more. _

_Okay, Oscars sized thank you speech now over….thank you and goodnight!_

_Spikey44_


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